NO WONDER NO ONE TRUSTS NAJIB: Statistical 'defence' of Najib's economic performance shot to shreds

What has become of this country’s leaders? First we have the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob warning voters in Permatang Pauh that voting for Pakatan Rakyat in the upcoming by-election there would mean no allocation for them from his ministry.

I guess in the land of “I help you and you help me”, this is not surprising anymore. However the bigger baloney is the one revealed by Salleh Said Keruak who now claims that the Opposition did not, in fact, get the majority of popular votes in the 13th general election.

I don’t know if this is due to his ignorance or defiant obstinacy. But one thing is for sure – the logic used was aimed at causing confusion.

I. Sabri

In essence, these are his arguments:

There were 18.5 million Malaysians of voting age during the 13th General election in 2013;

Out of the 18.5 million, 13.5 million had registered to vote, and 5 million did not;

11 million came out to vote;

5.6 million voted for the Opposition and 5.4 million voted for Barisan Nasional;

Here is the “beauty” – the Opposition cannot claim enjoying the majority in popular votes because 5.6 million votes over 18.5 million represents only 30%, not 51% as claimed by the opposition.

Never mind that under our election system, only those who vote shall determine the outcome of any election. “Those who did not register” and “those who registered but did not vote” do not count.

His biggest assumption is that “those who did not register” and “those who registered but did not vote” were all against the Opposition. Worse still, he has assumed they were all BN supporters. Otherwise, there was no way he could have concluded that only 30% of eligible voters (5.6 million over 18.5 million) supported the opposition in the 13th general election.

Say, for a minute we bring down our intelligence to his level, I could also conclude that 5.4 million BN votes out of 18.5 million eligible voters was only 29%, if I assume like him that all “those who did not register” and “those who registered but did not vote” were all opposition supporters instead of BN supporters.

But I am not going do that because that would be too crude and rudimentary. I would prefer that in the absence of any further information, it is sensible to use the “average” i.e. eligible voters who did not register or who registered but did not vote were split right in the middle. If this assumption is used, the opposition would still have its majority since among those who voted, the majority was with the opposition.

Wan Azizah

However in statistical analysis, we do not stop here. We use samples to draw inferences on the population. In this case, 11 million who voted are the samples. The population is 18.5 million eligible voters. A sample size of 11 million out of 18.5 million is more than adequate to draw a conclusion about the population.

Therefore it is safe to conclude that 51% of 18.5 million would have voted for the opposition in the 13th general election. This means 9.4 million would have voted for the opposition and 9.1 million for BN.

I do not claim to know everything. But Salleh Said Keruak is most welcome to consult with any statistician in the country, including the Chief Statistician of the government to determine the statistical validity of what I have said here. - FMT