‘PAS to win by 7,000 majority’
So there you have it, my prediction is that PAS will win by a majority of 7,000 votes. Tonight, I will know if my analytical skills have served me well … or not!
Lim Kit Siang's Blog
Here then are the details of my prediction and the steps I use to calculate the predicted majority.
In the previous article, I said that I did not have conclusive evidence to show me that the Malay vote was trending either to the opposition or BN. I simply said that split voting that worked in BN’s favour in March 2008 would not occur again in this by-election.
But by comparing the underlying responses of those in the 2007 and 2009 surveys using my own estimating techniques, I found consistent evidence that the Malay vote has swung to PAS since the time when the 2007 survey was taken in December of that year.
My estimates show that the Malay vote will swing to PAS by approximately 4%. Given that my estimate of the Malay support for BN was 47% in 2008, this means that the overall Malay support for the BN will fall to 43% or that PAS will win 57% of the Malay vote (not including postal votes).
With an estimated Malay turnout of 81% (slightly less than 2008) and by excluding spoilt votes and votes for the independent candidate (which I estimate to total approximately 2%), this translates into a majority of 7,720 for PAS among the Malay voters.
Among the non-Malays (mostly Chinese), I estimate that the turnout will decrease by approximately 10% from 65% in 2008 to 55% in 2009, primarily because of the Chinese New Year holidays that will take place the following week.
Among the non-Malays who will turn out, I estimate a BN support level of 45%. This represents a significant 20% swing in the non-Malay vote from 2008. This is consistent with the Merdeka Center survey results as well as the feeling from the ‘ground’ that the Chinese vote has swung against the BN and in favour of the opposition. Because of the relatively lower turnout and small percentage of Chinese voters in this constituency, this works out to a 510 vote margin in favour of PAS.
The Malay and non-Malay majorities calculated above results in an 8,230 majority in favour of PAS. However, there are approximately 1,300 postal votes in this constituency. Assuming that 90% of the postal votes will go to the BN, this means that BN will have a majority of 1,170 votes from postal votes alone.
Subtracting this figure from the 8,230 majority, I arrive at the final prediction of 7,060 votes or approximately 7,000 votes. This represents a 3,700 vote increase from my initial prediction of 3,300 votes for PAS.
