The problem with self-hypnosis

I did not see that happen in Kuala Terengganu. In fact, the reverse happened. In areas where there are a high percentage of Chinese voters, the opposition did better in March 2008 than it did in January 2009. And in January 2009, the Tsunami was supposed to have been bigger than in March 2008, as what we are being told.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Penang has more Malays than Chinese

(The Star) - The number of Malays in Penang is increasing, and they now outnumber the Chinese by 0.7%.

In 2009, the population of Malays was at 654,300, just ahead of 651,600 Chinese or just a 0.1% difference.

In 2010, it widened to 0.7% with 41.6% or 670,100 of the estimated 1.6mil Penang population being Malays while 658,700 or 40.9% were Chinese.

According to statistics, the two races were followed by 9.7% Indians (155,600), 7% non-Malaysians (112,200) and 0.8% others and other bumiputras (13,300).

The statistics, obtained from Department of Statistics, is part of a 32-page Penang Statistics (Quarter 1, 2010) report submitted to the state government by the Socio-Economic and Environ­mental Research Institute (Seri), which is the state government’s think-tank.

The report can be viewed at Seri’s website at www.seri.com.my.

Bukit Bendera MP Liew Chin Tong of DAP (picture above) said the trend was not surprising or unusual.

“It’s a national trend. It is not that the Chinese population didn’t grow but the Malay population is growing faster.”

“We have been expecting this to happen since the 1980s because of the 70 million population policy announced by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad,” he said yesterday.

However, Liew, who is Seri executive director and DAP strategist, said the trend was a good opportunity for DAP.

“To me, it’s not about the declining number of people from a certain race, but more about quality of life,” he said.

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The most often heard remark since the aftermath of the March 2008 general election is that 80-90% of the Chinese all over Malaysia -- even in Sabah and Sarawak -- will be voting opposition in the coming general election while the Indians and Malays are split 50-50.

The second most often heard remark being bandied about is that Penang will, without a doubt, remain with Pakatan Rakyat because Penang is majority Chinese.

Mainly, the assumption is, in March 2008, Malaysia saw a political Tsunami and in the coming general election this Tsunami is going to get even bigger. Hence, while Pakatan Rakyat managed to sweep five states and 82 Parliament seats in March 2008 -- and in that same process denied Barisan Nasional its two-thirds majority in Parliament -- this time around Pakatan Rakyat is going to do even better and will send Barisan Nasional into retirement.

The issue is: is this an educated guess, a conclusion based on research, or mere wishful thinking and self-hypnosis into seeing what is not there?

There are some who consider my articles on history boring and a total waste of time. “Why talk about the past?” they ask me, “the past is not important.”

That depends, of course, on what your purpose of learning history is. If Hitler had learned from the past, then he would not have made the same mistake that Napoleon made and hence Germany might not have lost the war, or maybe would not have lost the war so fast.

And while on the subject of Napoleon, some historians say that Napoleon was a military genius. Now, this is merely their opinion. What is the basis of classifying someone as a military genius? If it is on the basis that he moved his army across Europe so fast (Blitzkrieg) that he caught the enemy sleeping, then probably he is a military genius. But if based on the estimated 5 million-6.5 million people who were killed in the Napoleonic Wars, would one still consider Napoleon a genius? How can someone who resulted in 5 million or more deaths be a genius?

Hence, how you perceive things would influence your conclusions. And history is certainly not an exact science because history is not merely about reporting the events but about interpreting the events as well. Hence, also, Osama Bin Ladin can be both hero and murderer depending on what yardstick you apply.

Statistics normally do not lie -- unless you doctor those statistics. But how you interpret those statistics can differ depending on what colour lenses you are using to look at them. For example, no one will dispute the existence of the Qur’an. But whether you regard the Qur’an as God’s word or not would depend on how you look at things.

The bottom line is: one fact, but two different interpretations of that one fact.

Okay, let’s get back to the March 2008 Tsunami being bigger in the coming general election.

For someone like me who wants to see a strong two-party system where we give one group the government for, say, two terms, and then switch to the other group for, say, another two terms, the strong Tsunami that everyone says we will see is certainly a most welcome scenario.

The adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely is certainly true and you need not be a student of history to understand that. Hence we need a balance, and that balance can only be achieved when we have two strong political parties (and not one strong one and one weak one).

Nevertheless, is this even bigger Tsunami than the one in March 2008 for real? And what do we base our conclusions on?

Let us look at the Kuala Terengganu Parliamentary by-election (P036) that was held in January 2009, about ten months after the March 2008 Tsunami. You can look at the details or statistics below.

The turnout in that by-election was slightly lower than in the general election ten months before that. And this was because the turnout for Chinese voters was greatly reduced.

I spent that entire period in Kuala Terengganu together with a few other Bloggers such as Haris Ibrahim (Sam), Bernard Khoo (Zorro), etc. Even Zaid Ibrahim, who was not in PKR yet at that time, came up to join us for three days. And we campaigned door-to-door, not once, but three rounds in all -- even Zaid Ibrahim. We even went to all the pubs and clubs to meet the Chinese voters.

Hence, we obtained feedback from the ‘horses’ mouths’, so to speak. And what we were told was this.

Many of the Chinese voters (mainly the younger ones who work outside Kuala Terengganu) would not be coming home to vote because they want to reserve their leave for Chinese New Year. (That's what I call 'commitment').

Most Chinese would be voting Barisan Nasional because they worry that if they vote PAS they may get punished by Umno (especially those from Kampong Cina whose homes sit on TOL land).

The Chinese feel that the majority of the Malays would be voting PAS so it does not matter if the Chinese vote Barisan Nasional. (PAS can still win even though with a reduced majority).

Sam and Bernard can tell you about this ‘survey’ that we did because they too were there and they too heard what the Chinese had to say. Understandably, this upset us and we were worried that if the Chinese did what they said they were going to do, and if the Malays do not swing to PAS like we hoped, then Umno was going to win that by-election. (It was, after all, an Umno seat, which they won in March 2008).

And that was when I decided to change tactics. Initially, I only campaigned amongst the Chinese voters. But when I discovered that the Chinese would not all be voting opposition, I started campaigning amongst the Malay voters as well (who I had ‘ignored’ in the beginning).

Come Polling Day and what we were told was going to happen really did happen. Many younger Chinese who work outside Kuala Terengganu did not come home to vote. The fact that we were monitoring the polling stations and we saw mostly senior citizen Chinese coming out to vote confirmed this.

Next, the areas or UPU that were predominantly Malay went to the opposition while the areas that had a fair number of Chinese voters went to Umno.

And the voter turnout was lower than for the GE, in particular amongst the Chinese voters. Plus, also, the majority that PAS won was 2,000 less than we had hoped. (And note the high 'spoilt' votes -- considering that the voters were urban and not rural).

Pakatan Rakyat is supposed to win the coming general election on the strength of the Chinese support. And the Chinese support this time around is supposed to be bigger than in March 2008.

I did not see that happen in Kuala Terengganu. In fact, the reverse happened. In areas where there are a high percentage of Chinese voters, the opposition did better in March 2008 than it did in January 2009. And in January 2009, the Tsunami was supposed to have been bigger than in March 2008, as what we are being told.

Is the story that, today, more Chinese have swung to the opposition compared to March 2008 a fallacy? What evidence are we using to come to this conclusion? I worry that we are merely fooling ourselves and are subjecting ourselves to self-hypnosis. The statistics do not appear to support what we say.

Another point of importance is: if we depend on just Chinese votes for the opposition to win the election, then we are going to create a situation where ‘opposition’ means ‘Chinese’ and ‘government’ means ‘Malay’.

Now, do I need to spell out in graphic details the danger of such a thing happening? And if you still do not get what I am driving at then you should not be reading Malaysia Today because you are not clever enough forMalaysia Today.

Oh, and yes, I know, those of you who find what I just wrote extremely unsettling are now going to accuse me of spinning for Barisan Nasional. Well, that is called denial syndrome, an ailment of people who refuse to accept reality. If I was helping Barisan Nasional then I would just keep quiet instead of warning you that you need to do your maths again.

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Kuala Terengganu Parliament Seat (P036)

80,229 registered voters

63,993 came out to vote

32,883 voted for PAS

30,252 voted for Umno

665 spoilt votes

The four State Assembly seats under Kuala Terengganu

1. Wakaf Mempelam (Umno)

2. Bandar (MCA)

3. Ladang (PAS)

4. Batu Buruk (PAS)

Voter breakdown according to ethnicity

Malays: 88.14%

Chinese: 10.94%

Indians: 0.65%

Others: 0.27%

In the Kuala Terengganu by-election on 7th January 2009, PAS did well in the Malay-majority seats of Wakaf Mempelam and Batu Buruk while it did badly in Ladang and Bandar, which has a higher percentage of Chinese voters.