What actually did happen in Sungai Limau
The ‘missing’ 777 Chinese voters could mean a sign of protest by the Chinese (especially since their turnout of 57.82% is lower than the 85.5% average). This could be because they are not happy with PAS and neither do they want to vote Umno so they would rather ‘abstain’ from voting.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
In my article ‘Chinese still the kingmaker’ of two days ago I said:
About 85.5% or 23,249 of the 27,222 registered voters in Sungai Limau turned out to vote. Out of these 27,222 registered voters, 1,842 are Chinese. Let us assume that 85.5% of the Chinese voters turned out to vote as well. That means about 1,575 of the 1,842 Chinese voters voted yesterday.
Now, in the recent general election, 97% of the Chinese voters voted opposition. So let us assume that the Chinese support for the opposition has remained the same and in yesterday’s by-election 97% of the 1,575 Chinese voters voted opposition as well. That would mean 1,347 Chinese voted for PAS yesterday.
PAS garnered 12,069 votes versus Umno’s 10,985 (giving PAS a majority of 1,084). Now, if the 12,069 votes that PAS won includes the 1,347 Chinese votes, that would mean the Malay votes that PAS won was only 10,722 versus Umno’s 10,655 (10,985 minus the 3% Chinese votes that Umno won based on the assumption that 97% of the Chinese voters voted opposition).
This would mean (if it was 10,722 Malay votes for PAS versus 10,655 Malay votes for Umno) the Malays are still split 50:50 like what Nazri Aziz told me five years ago. And this would also mean that PAS won the Sungai Limau by-election yesterday with a 1,084 majority because of the 97% Chinese support representing 1,347 Chinese voters.
Hence the Chinese (if 97% continue to vote opposition until the next general election) are the kingmaker. And it also means that the Chinese have not swung back to the ruling party and continue to support the opposition until today.
I also said: I am still working on the basis of ‘educated guess’ and not backed with the details of the saluran.
Well, these are the actual figures that I just received.
While 23,249 or 85.5% of the 27,222 registered voters came out to vote, only 23,054 votes were counted (195 votes were rejected/spoiled votes or not counted).
From this 23,054 counted votes, 1,065 were Chinese voters and not 1,575 as I had expected — which would translate to only 57.82% and not a 85.5% voter turnout for the Chinese.
Barisan Nasional claims that 30% of the Chinese voted for the ruling party while 70% voted opposition. Others say only about 10% of the Chinese voted government (they claim an increase of 60-70% from the last time) while the rest voted opposition.
Okay, let us take the average of the two: 20%. That would mean about 213 Chinese voters voted for Umno while about 852 voted PAS.
The total counted votes was 23,054. Minus the 1,065 Chinese voters, we can assume that 21,989 of the voters were Malays.
PAS won 12,069 of the votes and Umno won 10,985. Minus the Chinese votes, that would mean PAS won 11,217 of the Malay votes and Umno won 10,772 — a majority of 445 for PAS based on just the Malay votes.
Hence PAS’s majority of 1,084 would translate to 11,217 Malay votes and 852 Chinese votes while Umno won only 10,772 Malay votes and 213 Chinese votes.
The ‘missing’ 777 Chinese voters could mean a sign of protest by the Chinese (especially since their turnout of 57.82% is lower than the 85.5% average). This could be because they are not happy with PAS and neither do they want to vote Umno so they would rather ‘abstain’ from voting.
My conclusion is: with a slim majority of Malay votes for PAS (445), the 777 Chinese voters could have swung the results had they come out to vote and had they voted for Umno, especially if the 1,065 Chinese voters who did come out to vote had also voted government.
Hence for my statement in my earlier article: Chinese still the kingmaker.
Or maybe I should have said: Chinese still the kingmaker, if they so choose to be.
Incidentally, the opposition votes in the five voting districts that the Chinese voted in saw a drop this time around compared to the last general election in May this year. Was this because of the Chinese voters? Even MCA and Gerakan can’t confirm this yet at the time I wrote this article.
