Poll: Internet access key to info on Selangor water crisis

Access to the Internet has resulted in better dissemination of information, particularly with regards to actual news on the Klang Valley water disruption.

Universiti Malaya Centre for Democracy and Elections (Umcedel) director Prof Mohd Redzuan Othman(left) said the face-to-face survey conducted by the centre between Dec 26 and Jan 11 from 1,409 respondents, revealed this.

The survey was done at the height where some places in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur residents did not have any water supply for over a week, before it was fully restored earlier this month.

The water crisis, he said, had not had much of an effect to the Selangor Pakatan Rakyat administration.

“Initially, there may have been people who were misinformed of the cause that the Selangor water crisis was due to the Langat 2 plant as reported in some mainstream papers.

“However, the Selangor Pakatan government, with the use of the Internet media, have managed to pinpoint the real problem which is related to Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas). This has resulted in consumers in Selangor who have Internet media access to know the actual problem,” he said.

Mohd Redzuan told this to reporters in revealing the results of the survey. The survey was done in peninsular Malaysia, taking a wide spectrum range of voters from the three main races.

Following the advent of the Internet, he noted that rural areas which do not have such accesses were more likely to support BN.

Mohd Redzuan found that in rural areas, the people's access to information is strictly through the RTM1, RTM2 and TV3 channels, along with access to the mainstream newspapers.

“They do not have Astro or the Internet and hence, they have limited information. In our survey, we found that the limited source of information may affect their votes.

“Hence, in the rural areas which do not have such facilities, the support generally goes to BN,” he said.

Voters look at candidates' capabilities

In another interesting development in the survey, Mohd Redzuan pointed out that the present maturity levels of today's voters are quite high, as their poll shows that they would not vote simply along party lines, but would also look at the candidates put up.

This development, he said, is not limited to those with university degrees, but it had also transcended across the board.

“There is almost an equal amount of respondents who say that they will vote according to the candidates put up by the party (48 percent), rather then vote along party lines (five percent). I think gone are the days where the people will vote just anyone who is placed as candidates.

“They are now making informed choices, as they are no longer only taking into consideration the political parties, but the capability of the candidates as well,” he said.

He added that past surveys, particularly in one done between September and December 2011, showed that 54 percent of voters were more likely to vote along party lines, as compared to looking at the candidates' capabilities.

He said that among female voters, it was higher, with 54 percent of them looking at the candidates rather than party lines.

In revealing this, Mohd Redzuan said voters are better informed nowadays, and that they consider making sound choices, as they would not blindly vote according to parties.

He agreed that, like all surveys, Umcedel's findings had received a lot of flak.

“However, we treat this as an actual academic discourse for discussion. If the political parties say our survey is wrong, show us where we went wrong. It is to be noted that our survey is done by meeting the respondents and not over the phone, and sometimes, we get other information which the respondents may not reveal over the phone.”

The survey, he said, could also serve as a useful tool for the political parties to identify the causes of their popularity, or otherwise make an effort to rectify it to make informed choices.

Mohd Redzuan said that the survey, which was released by Umcedel yesterday, has an error probability ratio of 2.61 percent.