An exercise in maturity (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

ARCHIVES 2010

By MT Webmaster On May 4, 2010

Whatever it may be, the UK elections demonstrates the maturity of the voters. It is not about race or religion or special rights. It is about the policies of the parties contesting and about which party can be the better government.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I don’t know how many Malaysians are following the run-up to UK’s general and local council elections this Thursday. Many expect this to be the most interesting elections ever and they also expect it to be a very tight race, which may result in a hung parliament.

The two main contenders are of course Labour and Conservative, with the Liberal Democrats probably emerging as the kingmaker (see more here). You can also read the two Times Online pieces below that sort of sums up what to expect come Thursday night UK time.

What is interesting about the UK elections is that three live debates were held one week apart where the leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties were able to debate their policies — basically their mission and vision statements — so that the voters can understand what each party stands for.

Can you imagine three live debates being held on Malaysian TV with a questions and answers session thrown in so that Najib Tun Razak and Anwar Ibrahim can allow the voters to decide which coalition — Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat — has better policies?

The debate would not be about beer drinking or submarines or Mongolian models or sodomy or whatnot, but about how the country should be managed over the next five years. And you just can’t bluff in these debates because immediately after that a poll is conducted and political analysts would give their opinions. So you try to pull the wool over the voters’ eyes at your peril. You just can’t get away with bullshit.

The next novel thing about the British elections is that voters can still register to vote even two weeks before the elections. You do not need one year like in Malaysia. Next, once you register, then you get to vote at the polling station nearest you. And you can’t cheat because the voting slip would be sent to the address you registered, which would be where you live.

You can choose to go yourself to the polling station or you can vote by post. It’s your choice. And nobody worries about phantom voters or worries about their postal votes getting hijacked and switched for something else because such things just do not happen in the UK, like it does in Malaysia.

Okay, how do the people decide which party to vote for? Now that is a problem. Many are actually still deciding and have not made up their minds yet.

Some Labour supporters (even members) are going to vote Conservative this time around just so that they can try a new government after 13 years of Labour.

Some are going to vote Liberal Democrat so that both the main parties (Labour and Conservative) can be ‘locked’ in a hung parliament and the third party can play kingmaker — which means there is no real ‘boss’ because no one party can form the government on its own.

The fact that Labour supporters are going to vote ‘opposition’ just so that they can have a change of government after 13 years of the same government is the part that I like most. And if the new government does not perform then it is back to Labour come the next election. And even if the new government does perform it will still be back to Labour after two or three general elections just for the heck of it and so that they can try something new.

I know. I am being idealistic in thinking that this can happen in Malaysia, at least not in our generation. But this is what my perjuangan is all about, to see the emergence of two equally strong parties that we can rotate every two or three elections, and a ‘third force’ that can play kingmaker and balance between the two so that they know they can’t rule on their own without help from the third force.

It is a difficult dream to realise, I know. But it is not an impossible dream. And it is a dream that will take time to realise. But what is mankind in the absence of dreams? A person without a dream is a person who has stopped living. So I continue to dream. And my dream is that one day Malaysia will have a large percentage of matured voters who will choose their government based on tangible reasons and not based on emotions and sentiments and pining for a return to the glory of days gone by.

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Sunday Times/You Gov poll and our experts’ predictions for the election result

For the three main parties, the gap between triumph and disaster on Thursday night will be narrow.

At the moment, David Cameron is on course to be prime minister at the head of a minority Conservative government, with Labour winning more than twice as many seats as the Liberal Democrats, despite struggling to avoid third place in the popular vote.

However, it would need only modest swings in the final days of this campaign for the Conservatives to reach the 326 seats they need for an overall majority — or, indeed, for Labour to become the largest party.

Public attitudes seem fairly stable. YouGov’s last 11 daily polls have all shown the Tories to be on 34% plus or minus 1%, and Labour on 28% plus or minus 1%. There has been more variation in Lib Dem support, but nothing like the eruption that gave them a 10-point surge after the first televised debate.

What are the prospects of a last-minute shift? The last time the final days proved decisive was 40 years ago, when Edward Heath’s Conservatives achieved a late swing to oust Harold Wilson’s Labour party. This followed England’s exit from the World Cup on the Sunday before polling day and some unexpectedly bad trade figures on the Monday.

This time there are tentative signs that the Tory vote is hardening up, while Labour’s is more fragile. As today’s poll shows, Gordon Brown’s rating has dipped following the final TV debate. And Lord Ashcroft’s money could give the Tories an edge in getting their vote out.

As a result, my prediction is that the Conservatives will end up with 36% of the vote and 300 seats, Labour with 27% and 230 seats, and the Lib Dems also with 27% but just 90 seats.

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Hung parliament most likely outcome

A SUNDAY TIMES analysis of local council by-election results confirms national poll findings that the most likely outcome of the general election is a hung parliament.

The figures indicate that nationally the Conservatives are on a 36% share of the vote, Labour on 27% and the Liberal Democrats also on 27% . These figures are based on an analysis of 34 local contests over the past three months where more than 40,000 votes were cast. The votes are weighted, with those being cast most recently contributing more towards the estimated national vote share.

The 2010 general election has been unlike any other, with the leadership debates serving to boost Liberal Democrat support nationally. There is a strong case for an additional 1 percentage point on top of the existing Liberal Democrat support. A similar adjustment upwards of 1 percentage point is proposed for additional Labour voters who are likely to participate in a close general election race but reluctant to turn out for local by-elections in recent months. The Conservative vote has remained uniform throughout and no adjustment is regarded as necessary.

Accordingly the national vote share forecast is the Conservatives on 36%, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats on 28% each.

Analysis of local election results also suggests that the Lord Ashcroft strategy of targeting marginal seats is having an effect, and that standard swing assumptions may be underestimating likely Conservative gains.

The final seat forecast, therefore, is for the Conservatives to finish with 299, short of an overall majority, Labour with 237 and the Liberal Democrats trailing with 83 seats.

Translated into Chinese at: http://ccliew.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post_05.html