Chinese Tsunami? Najib, Zee Kin & Tommy Thomas
What I like about Zee Kin’s approach is that he tries to see what straws Najib may be clutching at in order to make the Chinese Tsunami claim. And Zee Kin shows it was one straw, grown from a probably unreliable seed (source).
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My Prime Minister said the reason his coalition was returned on 05 May 2013 with much fewer seats than in the 2008 General Election (GE12) was a “Chinese Tsunami.” Dato’ Sri Haji Mohammed Tun Razak used the label Chinese Tsunami as a sound-bite for “the Chinese have abandoned Barisan Nasional (BN).”
Najib said much more, but I will restrict my discussion to the Chinese Tsunami.
Najib’s comments resulted in rage-inducing headlines in Malay newspapers owned by the PM’s party, the United Malays National Organization (Umno). Utusan asked “What more do Chinese People want?” Kosmo! said “Chinese Voters are 2-faced.”
Najib did not denounce the views expressed by his newspapers.
The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), the second largest component party of BN, agrees ethnically Chinese Malaysians have abandoned the MCA.
The MCA has said it will refuse all offers of cabinet positions. MCA leaders are resigning from government posts. I suppose they are doing so because they recognize their shameful performance in GE13 will cause their Umno masters to treat them even more like the puppets and conniving thieves voters perceive them to be.
The MCA is closing down several service centres. Some say the MCA is keeping its pre-election promise. Others say the MCA wants to “punish” voters who didn’t support them – seemingly forgetting that many did vote for MCA candidates.
Overall, the leaders of the MCA appear to believe there has indeed been a Chinese Tsunami, in so far as this term means large numbers of Chinese voters no longer wish the MCA to represent them.
There has been an outcry in the social media (all traditional media parrot Najib) and online news portals over the race-based analysis which underlies the conclusion that the root cause of Najib’s failure to deliver more seats in GE13 compared to GE12 is the loss of the Chinese votebank.
I have seen two data-based responses to Najib’s claim that there has been a Chinese Tsunami. The first is contained in a Note posted by a Facebook user, Tai Zee Kin, who identifies himself as a Malaysian citizen trained in the law.
Zee Kin writes charmingly (“please do not read while driving,” “face palm”) and throws in technical terms and attenuated references to academic authors to show us he really has done what he claims – he once wrote an undergraduate dissertation about democracy.
Zee Kin begins with what he calls an unreliable source – which he doesn’t name. He says the DAP contested in 91 % of constituencies with “high” ethnically Chinese voters. I’m unclear what he means by “high,” though he alludes to ranking by ratio of Chinese voters. I suppose he’s saying the DAP’s GE13 strategy was to compete in areas with relatively high concentrations of Chinese voters.
Zee Kin says:
“DAP gained 10 seats for contesting in 91% (pls rebut if u have better source) highest ranked Chinese population ratio seats, and have a net GAIN of 10 seats, PKR and PAS combined running in the rest, and have net LOSE of 3 seats. I think that’s what NAJIB meant by “Chinese Tsunami”. he uses electoral system. then again, i didn’t agree with him.” (sic)
Again, I’m unclear what “high” means. I’ll speculate that the DAP, like all other parties in Malaysia, recognizes the reality of race in post-colonial Malaysia ruled for 56 years by a coalition with the same race-based agenda as the colonists. Therefore the DAP considered it best to use its limited funds to compete in constituencies with a relatively large numbers of Chinese – which also happens to be urban areas. [The DAP (Democratic Action Party) is still shaking off the perception that it’s primarily Chinese.]
After saying he doesn’t agree with Najib, Zee Kin says if the term Tsunami is to be used, it’s more useful to say it’s an Urban Tsunami than to say it’s a Chinese tsunami.
What I like about Zee Kin’s approach is that he tries to see what straws Najib may be clutching at in order to make the Chinese Tsunami claim. And Zee Kin shows it was one straw, grown from a probably unreliable seed (source).
That was the first “data-based response.” (My own post immediately after GE13 was about the Elections Commission; it was based on impressions, some of them statistical in nature, but without any actual GE13 numbers.)
The second response I’ve seen is by Tommy Thomas, a senior lawyer who has a reputation for acute analysis and who writes pithily.
