Merdeka Centre: Our analysis solid | Free Malaysia Today

Merdeka Centre: Our analysis solid

Alfian ZM Tahir | August 15, 2013
Its director Ibrahim Suffian refutes MIC deputy president S Subramanian's claim that their analysis of the 13th general election is flawed.
KUALA LUMPUR: Merdeka Centre today refuted MIC deputy president Dr S Subramanian’s claim that it had conducted a ‘flawed’ analysis of the 13th general election.

Ibrahim Suffian, the research firm’s director, said their analysis was established on solid findings.
“We welcome his comment on the matter as it applies to his constituency of P140 Segamat. But our analysis was done professionally without fear or favour.

“We do not dispute the results of the election nor do we intend to cast any aspersions on the conduct of the election or parties which had contested,” said Ibrahim.

Merdeka Centre’s study showed that two MIC cabinet ministers, Subramaniam and party president G Palanivel, would have lost their parliamentary seats without the advance and postal voting.

The report also said that several seats in Johor and the Federal Territory would have also fallen to Pakatan Rakyat and BN won 22 parliamentary seats with the help of additional postal and early voters.
Ibrahim explained that in Segamat, 39,899 voters cast their vote in the constituency and only 799 were advanced and postal voters. The remainder 39,096 were ordinary voters.

“Four-hundered and seventy-four were postal voters made up of SPR workers, members of the media or any applicable security personnel

“There was an additional 325 advance voters comprising security personnel in the area, which means 799 were advanced and postal voters. The rest (39,096) were all ordinary voters,” he said.

Different voting patterns
He added that based on the detailed results, BN enjoyed a slim majority of 658 votes among ordinary voters and the remainder 1,217 majority won was made up of votes from advanced and postal voters.
“From the table, we can clearly see that BN enjoyed a slim majority among ordinary voters which coincidentally is also smaller than the number of spoilt ordinary voters’ ballots,” said Ibrahim.

“From another perspective BN gained 49.71% of the votes cast among ordinary voters,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim said that the voting pattern of the advanced and postal voters showed a vastly different voting pattern when compared to ordinary voters.

“When ordinary voters were evenly split between BN and PKR candidates, the results show that nearly all of the advanced voters and nearly 7 out of 10 postal ballots went in favor of the BN candidates.”
Ibrahim added that the report simply examined the election results in search of patterns that describe a wider trend among voters.

“(The report) is part of an exercise to understand how Malaysians made their choices during the 13th general election,” he said.


Also read:
Merdeka Centre analysis a ‘blatant lie’

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