Crowds don’t translate to votes (rehash of a March 2004 article) [UPDATED with Chinese Translation]

In March 2004, I wrote an article called ‘Crowds don’t translate to votes‘, which was published in Harakah, the party newspaper for PAS. I also published it in the Free Anwar Campaign website (here). Maybe it is time to recap what I said then considering we ‘won’ the ceramah circuit but lost the Hulu Selangor by-election. 

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Crowds don’t translate to votes

In the Indera Kayangan state seat (Perlis State) by-election in which Parti Keadilan Nasional’s Cikgu Khoo contested that seat, the crowds at the nightly ceramahs (public rallies/speeches) were phenomenal. In one ceramah that I attended, I had to park my car about three or four kilometres away and walk the distance to the ceramah site. I then drove around to have a look at the Barisan Nasional (BN) markas (operations centers) and found that most of them were empty. There were hardly any people other than the handful of party officials.

Where were the BN supporters? By the looks of it, BN had absolutely no supporters and there was no way they were going to win the Indera Kayangan by-election.

Judging by the crowds at the keADILan ceramahs, and the lack of it at the BN ceramahs — so much so that some BN ceramahs had to be cancelled due to the sorry crowd turnout — Cikgu Khoo had already won the by-election hands down. In fact, Cikgu Khoo could end his campaigning and go out and celebrate his apparent win.

However, when the results came in, Cikgu Khoo was defeated by more than 2,500 votes. How could this be so? The crowd turnout gave no inkling this would be what would happen. Pemuda Keadilan was so confident Cikgu Khoo had already won even before the votes were cast that there was a celebrative mood in its ranks. One Pemuda leader said we had already won. Okay, even if we will lose, he said, at the most it will be by a mere 500 votes, which can also be considered a ‘victory’.

But there was no victory celebration that night in Indera Kayangan. We did not lose, we were massacred. And we all put out tails between our legs and went home. We did not even have an appetite for dinner.

And Indera Kayangan was not the first and only incident where crowds did not translate to votes. The Democratic Action Party (DAP) ‘giants’, Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh, attracted enormous crowds wherever they went, and still do. But, in 1999, they were defeated.

In 1986, Mustapha Ali lost his Dungun seat and Abdul Hadi Awang his Marang seat though these two can also be considered Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) ‘giants’. And they too attracted, and still do, huge crowds. Marang was so congested with supporters that the main road from Kuantan to Kota Bharu was practically closed to all traffic whenever Hadi spoke in his home base. However, though the crowds were large enough to delay traffic up to three hours, Hadi still failed to retain his Marang seat.

The opposition should realise by now that large crowds do not translate to votes. History, time and time again, has proven this point. And why is this?

People, mostly Malays mind you, attend ceramahs to be entertained. Malays like to hear the maki and caci (verbal abuse) from the penceramah, and the more the better. Speakers like PAS’ Mat Sabu and keADILan’s Gobalakrishnan are the favourites.

Gobalakrishnan would stand up on stage and call Dr Mahathir Mohamad “an Indian just like me”.

“He came from the same kampong in India that I came from,” Gobalakrishnan would shout to the crowd roaring with laughter. They just love what Gobalakrishnan has to say and they cannot get enough of it. They clap and shout and urge him on. And Gobalakrishnan willingly obliges them.

But, when the votes are counted, Gobalakrishnan loses.

It does not mean if the crowd enjoys your ceramah it will vote for you. In fact, how many of those in the crowd are voting in that area you are contesting? For that matter, how many in the crowd are even registered voters in the first place?

Don’t be surprised if many in the crowd are actually BN supporters. They attend opposition ceramahs not because they no longer support BN and will now vote for the opposition. They attend opposition ceramahs to be entertained, especially when the opposition heavyweights are talking; and entertained they are. Then they go home and vote for the BN.

The opposition can continue organising ceramahs to show it is still around.  It can continue organising ceramahs to entertain the crowd. But don’t expect to win the election just by ceramahs alone.

Furthermore, if those who attend the ceramahs are the opposition diehard supporters (who will vote for the opposition nevertheless, whether there are any ceramahs or not), BN diehards who just come for the entertainment value (and will vote for the BN nevertheless, whether there are any ceramahs or not), and people who are not registered voters (who cannot vote for the opposition even if they believe what they hear at the ceramahs), then what have we achieved?

It is no use trying to convert the already converted — who are already our supporters anyway. It is no use trying to convert the BN diehards — who will never vote opposition. And it is no use trying to covert the unregistered voters who cannot vote for us even if they wanted to. What we must do is covert the fence sitters — those who are not with the BN but are not yet with us either.

The only problem is, these fence-sitters will never be caught dead at an opposition ceramah so how do you convert them if they do not come to you? The English have a saying for this. “If Muhammad will not come to the mountain, then the mountain must go to Muhammad”.

In short, the opposition must go to the voters, in particular the fence sitters, and woo them over.

Take note that a rule-of-thumb to use (though not always accurate) would be 35% of the voters support the ruling party, 35% the opposition, while the balance 30% are fence-sitters. In the short 8-day campaign period between Nomination Day and Polling Day, there is too little time to work on the ruling party diehards. It is an exercise of futility. It is also no point working on your own supporters. You have had four or five years to work on retaining their loyalty. Eight days is only enough time to work on the 30% fence sitters.

30% is no small figure. Considering that a seat can be won or lost by a mere single digit percentage, 30% could make a difference between winning, or losing, an entire state.

So go door-to-door. Go meet those ‘uncommitted’ voters. Go talk to those voters who have never attended a ceramah in their life. Do not talk bad about the present government. That is too negative. These people probably know more than us anyway about what is wrong with this country and the government that is running it. Talk about how we can be a BETTER government, which does not mean you are saying the present government is no good (it is just that we can do better).

Explain the present government’s policies on education, the economy, corruption, health, religion, the judiciary, and so on. Then explain the opposition’s policies and ask the voter to compare the two. Then ask the voter to give the opposition a chance to prove itself in implementing its better policies, for at least five years. Explain that, if the opposition fails to deliver its promises, the voters can always give the country back to the present party in power.

Whatever it may be, go meet them and talk to them, and don’t expect them to come to you, especially to your ceramahs. And please talk sense when you go meet them. Leave all your rhetoric at home and do not insult them with ‘ceramah talk’.

Translated into Chinese at http://ccliew.blogspot.com/2010/04/2004.html