Botched campaign strategy failed DAP in Teluk Intan, survey shows
The Malaysian Insider
A botched campaign strategy that focused more on urban areas in Teluk Intan was behind DAP candidate Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud’s loss in the May 31 by-election, as the party failed to compensate for her political inexperience and unfamiliarity with voters, according to a new survey by the Merdeka Center.
The survey of 404 Teluk Intan voters over the weekend showed that Barisan Nasional (BN) reached out to almost all segment of voters while DAP and its allies reached out to more men in urban areas, and less women.
Dyana Sofya lost by 238 votes to BN’s Datuk Mah Siew Keong, the Gerakan president who had served two terms as Teluk Intan MP before losing in 2008.
“Election results show voters cannot be taken for granted and would teach parties a lesson given the opportunity,” Merdeka Center director Ibrahim Suffian told The Malaysian Insider.
“The DAP still has a long way to endear itself to the Malay community but the slight rise in support shows that it is doing some things right,” the respected pollster added.
In the survey commissioned by The Malaysian Insider, the Merdeka Center found that 13% of respondents voted for a different party compared with last year, with 29% of them saying they did so because they wanted to see more changes.
According to the survey, voters viewed development politics and the famous local candidate of BN as the key reasons for BN’s victory.
It discovered that 14.7% felt that the DAP lost due to Dyana Sofya’s inexperience while 9.4% said it was because she was not a local and 11.7% believe that many young voters did not go back to vote in the by-election.
The survey also found that DAP also did not cover enough ground to explain its move to field a political novice, while BN campaigners were nearly twice as prolific in the online arena, and nearly blanketed the electorate in Teluk Intan.
Some 72% of the respondents surveyed from June 6 to June 8 said they received messages from the BN campaign team through their mobile phones or social media, as opposed to only 31% from the DAP.
“When trying a novel idea or approach or even a candidate, massive information campaign is needed to explain the rationale to voters; here the election communications outreach is critical. Online alone is not enough,” Ibrahim added.
Meanwhile, 35% of voters said they had interacted with BN campaigners in Teluk Intan, while only 23% said they had encountered DAP’s campaigners.
The survey found that DAP was already handicapped by Mah’s familiarity among the people of Teluk Intan.
Nearly half (45%) of the survey respondents who voted BN last month said Mah, as opposed to BN, was the reason behind their choice.
The Gerakan president was born and raised in the constituency but Dyana Sofya was a virtual unknown before she was fielded; the young lawyer’s role in politics prior to the campaign had been as DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang’s aide.
Some 65% of the respondents who had voted for Dyana Sofya did so because of her party, rather than the candidate herself.
This was despite DAP touting Dyana Sofya as the face of “new politics”, saying if she won, she would represent youths and women in Parliament, and that her win would signal the end of racial politics.
But Mah won in spite of his party and coalition’s unpopularity in the constituency – garnering 20,157 votes against Dyana Sofya’s 19,919, despite analysts predicting DAP would retain the seat.
