5th May (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)
Hence to use the crowd turnout as the yardstick to gauge your chances of success is not always the right way to go. Many general elections and by-elections have proven this. The opposition ceramah attract crowds in the tens of thousands while the Barisan Nasional ceramah can’t even attract 100 people. But when the votes are counted, Barisan Nasional wins and with a large majority on top of that.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
EVENTS OF 5TH MAY
1260 Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire
1430 Jews are expelled from Speyer Germany
1646 King Charles I surrenders at Scotland
1762 Russia and Prussia sign peace treaty
1809 Citizenship is denied to Jews of Canton of Aargau Switzerland
1881 Anti-Jewish rioting in Kiev Ukraine
1893 Panic of 1893: Great crash on the New York Stock Exchange
1920 German-Latvian peace treaty signed
1932 Japan and China sign a peace treaty
1936 Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa
1940 Norwegian government in exile forms in London
1941 Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa
1944 Gandhi freed from prison
1945 Netherlands and Denmark liberated from Nazi control
1948 Belgian government of Spaak resigns
1954 Military coup by general Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay
1955 India’s parliament accepts hindu-divorce
1957 Adolf Scharf elected president of Austria
1964 Separatists riot in Quebec
1965 1st large-scale U.S. Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam
1971 Race riot in Brownsville section of Brooklyn (New York City)
1980 Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends; British commandos and police stormed the building
1994 Labour beats Conservatives in British local elections
2011 In Brazil, the Supreme Federal Court rules that same-sex couples receive the same rights of existing civil unions
2013 (Yet to happen)
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Barisan Nasional is extremely worried. They are not confident of winning the coming general election on 5th May 2013. They are not even sure whether if they do win it’s going to be so narrow a win that Malaysia will see a hung parliament.
That is good. This is going to be so tight a race you need to be scared. Furthermore, if Barisan Nasional does win, and if they win with a very slim majority, they would be so frantic that they will make sure that this will never happen again.
And the only way that that can happen would be if they were to perform and reform and deliver what the rakyat wants. If not, then the next time around they are going to be out for sure since even more young people will be voting in the 14th General Election in five year’s time.
Pakatan Rakyat is very confident. They are so confident they are already practically celebrating their success and fighting over who should be the Prime Minister and whether the Islamic Sharia law of Hudud will or will not be implemented.
And that is bad. This is going to be so tight a race you can’t afford to be overconfident and sound arrogant and take the voters for granted. The voters have many times in the past surprised us all. Just when we thought they were going one way they suddenly swing the other way.
No doubt the opposition ceramah (rallies) attract large crowds while the Barisan Nasional ceramah are practically deserted. This has always been the case since I first attended election rallies back in 1969. And I have always said since 1999 that crowds do not translate to votes. This has been proven time and again.
Hence to use the crowd turnout as the yardstick to gauge your chances of success is not always the right way to go. Many general elections and by-elections have proven this. The opposition ceramah attract crowds in the tens of thousands while the Barisan Nasional ceramah can’t even attract 100 people. But when the votes are counted, Barisan Nasional wins and with a large majority on top of that.
But then it can also work the other way. Because your rallies are huge, the fence sitters may actually be influenced or psyched into voting opposition. People always want to be associated with the winner. No one wants to run with the loser. Hence, since you are giving the perception of success due to your large crowd turnout, people may actually vote for you.
Anyway, I believe that most people have already made up their minds as to whom to vote for. Normally I would use the not so accurate 30:40:30 rule-of-thumb (ruling party versus undecided versus opposition). For this election we can safely assume it is 45:10:45.
So this means both sides have a margin of only 10% to play with. And since it is a tight race and the winner will see a less than 10% margin over the loser, this 10% is very large. This 10% will decide who gets to form the federal government. That is how close it is going to be.
At this stage of the race, every vote counts. And both sides are going to squeeze every single vote they can get. A mere 5% of the votes will decide who is going to be the government. Hence 10% is a matter of life and death.
Anyway, for the superstitious who look at dates as something very significant, I have listed above some of the significant events that happened on 5th May over the last 750 years or so. Consider that my election trivia.
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IF A PICTURE IS WORTH 1,000 WORDS
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5月5
所以說，利用人群出席率來定奪你獲勝的機會並不完全是準確的。很多大選與補選已經證明了這點。數以萬計的人群出席反對黨的講座會而出席囯陣的有時不到100人，但在計算選票是，囯陣都會勝出，而且還以高票當選。
原文：Raja Petra Kamaruddin
譯文：方宙
五月五日所發生的大事
1260 元世祖忽必烈成爲蒙古帝國（即後來的元朝）的統治者
1430 猶太人被驅逐出德國的施派尔
1646 查爾斯一世在蘇格蘭投降
1762 俄囯與普鲁士簽署和平條約
1809 猶太人被拒絕獲得瑞士阿尔高州的公民權
1881 烏克蘭基辅市發生反猶太人暴動
1893 1983年的驚慌：紐約股市崩盤
1920 德意志-拉脱维亚和平條約正式被簽署
1932 日本和中國簽署和平條約
1936 意大利軍隊佔據亚的斯亚贝巴
1940 挪威流亡政府在倫敦組成
1941 海尔·塞拉西一世回歸亚的斯亚贝巴
1944 聖雄甘地獲釋
1945 荷蘭和丹麥脫離德纳粹的管轄
1948 比利時政府的保罗-亨利·斯巴克辭職
1954 阿尔弗雷多·斯特罗斯纳將軍在巴拉圭發動軍事政變
1955 印度國會接受興都徒可以離婚
1957 Adolf Scharf 當選為奧地利總統
1964 分裂分子在魁北克省發動暴動
1965 美陸軍第一次大規模的抵達南越
1971 紐約佈克林的Brownsville區發生種族暴動
1980 倫敦的伊朗大使館對持結束；英方突擊隊和警隊攻入大使館
1994 在地方選舉内，英國工黨擊敗保守黨
2011 巴西最高聯邦法院宣判，同性戀人將同等地獲得民事結合法所給與的權力
2013 (即將發生)
囯陣現在真的很擔心，他們沒有信心在5月5贏得這次大選。他們甚至也不清楚就算贏了是否也會因爲他們贏得太少而導致出現懸吊國會。
這是好的，只有在勢均力敵的時候你才需要害怕。而且，如果囯陣真的嬴的話，那也是會是個險勝，他們會因此變得很狂躁，他們將不想再遇到同樣的事情了。
要大贏的話，囯陣就得給出好的表現，做出改革，把人民想要看到的東西呈現給他們。若不是那樣，囯陣在第14屆大選將會輸得很難看，因爲更年輕的年輕人將會在5年后出來選舉。
民聯很有自信，他們太有信心了；他們已經開始慶祝他們的成功，爲首相一職開始爭議，和開始討論是否應該落實回教法。
這是不好的，在勢均力敵的時候你不應該太過自信而讓你看起來很高傲。你也不應該把選民的支持看得理所當然的。選民們曾多次地給我們‘驚喜’，就儅我們認爲他們會這樣做時，他們往往會搬出另一套做法。
毫無疑問的，反對黨的講座會（助選會）是吸引了很大的人群而囯陣的只有小貓兩三只。自1969年我第一次出席助選會開始事情就是這樣的了，我從1999年開始就不停地說人群並不代表選票，而事實一次又一次地證明我是對的。
所以說，利用人群出席率來定奪你獲勝的機會並不完全是準確的。很多大選與補選已經證明了這點。數以萬計的人群出席反對黨的講座會而出席囯陣的有時不到100人，但在計算選票是，囯陣都會勝出，而且還以高票當選。
但是，有時候這種現象會帶來好的效果。儅你的助選會夠火時，中間選民有可能會被你感染進而投給反對黨。人們
永遠是想站在勝者那一方的，所以儅你利用龐大的人群來製造一種你必勝的印象時，他們很有可能會投給你。
無論如何，我相信很多人經已決定他們會投給誰了。一般來講我會採用30：40：30的選民‘拇指規則’比例（執政黨：中間選民：反對黨），但這次大選我們可以把它看成是45：10：45。
這也表示雙方只有10%的差額，而既然這將是個惡鬥，獲勝者將會獲得少過10%的多數額，所以說這10%其實是很巨大的。這10%能夠左右誰將組成政府這個決定。
在現階段，我們可以説是一票也不能少，雙方都會使出全力來爭取選票。只要那區區的5%在手就能組成政府了，所以這10%將會是生死的關鍵。
還有，致那些很迷信的，認爲日子是很關鍵的，我把過去750年來在5月5所發生的重大事件列在上方。就當作是我給你的大選趣聞吧。
