ANALYSIS Campaigning in the Galas and Batu Sapi by-elections stopped a few hours ago. In about 12 hours, the results will be known.

My prediction, which many of my friends have been asking me for, is that PAS will retain Galas with a majority of 370 votes while the BN will retain Batu Sapi with a majority of 1,800 votes, with the SAPP trailing in second place and PKR not far behind.

Most people who read this article will do so to look at my prediction. Many will be quick to 'call me out', so to speak, if I get these predictions wrong, or to 'commend' me, if I get them right. I accept these challenges as part as parcel of a political analyst's job, especially one who is willing to stick his neck out to make these predictions.

NONE But the purpose of making these predictions are more than about getting it 'right'. Predicting election results in Malaysia is still very much an art rather than a science.

It is hard to obtain accurate survey data because of the high percentage of respondents who will not indicate their voting preference. I have tried to make it as 'scientific' as possible by basing my analysis on numbers, relying mostly on past election results at the polling station and sometimes 'saluran' or 'streaming' level.

By trying to push the envelope in terms of making election predictions closer to a 'science', I am hoping that new agendas in election research and analysis in the Malaysian context can be opened up.

One way of doing this is to dissect my predictions into different parts so that I know exactly where I went wrong and where I went right after the election results are known.

With this in mind, let me now explain why I think PAS will retain Galas.

PAS to retain Galas

Most of the media reports indicate that the BN is confident of wresting this seat back from PAS. March 2008 was just an anomaly, at least for this seat.

With Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, or Ku Li, in the driver's seat, the Malay vote that left the BN in 2008, mostly because of dissatisfaction with then premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, will return to the 'fold', so to speak, now that a more confident prime minister is at the helm, backed up by the favourite 'son' of Gua Musang.

I agree with the conventional wisdom that the Malay vote will swing back to the BN/Umno. This has been the trend in almost all of the by-elections since March 2008. Nothing politically significant has happened since (such as Anwar Ibrahim going to prison) which threatens to shift this trend.

But the magnitude of this swing has been overblown, in my opinion. In a seat which is 'merely' 63 percent Malay, a swing of 10 percent in the Malay vote will only result in a swing of 6.3 percent in terms of the overall level of BN support.

azlan It is not likely that even with the Ku Li factor, which in my opinion is somewhat exaggerated, that the BN would be able to enjoy that kind of swing among the Malay voters here.

I anticipate a much more likely 6 percent swing in the Malay support towards the BN, similar to that experienced during the Manek Urai by-election.

This would increase the share of BN support from 46 percent in 2008 (not counting spoiled votes) to slightly over 49 percent, edging the BN closer to an overall victory. (My estimate of Malay support for the BN in 2008 is 42 percent. In other words, the BN would require an 8 percent swing among the Malays just to split the votes evenly with PAS among Malay voters)

I estimated the Chinese support for the BN in 2008 to be approximately 48 percent in 2008. This can only come down following the trend observed in nearly all of the other by-elections (with the exception of Bagan Pinang in Negeri Sembilan). For example, Nizar Jamaluddin, the former MB of Perak, won as much as 80 percent of the Chinese vote in some of the Chinese-majority polling stations in the Bukit Gantang by-election.

Of course, I do not anticipate that Pakatan Rakyat would be able to engineer a 28 percent swing in the Chinese vote in Galas, but I think that a much more reasonable 13 percent swing against the BN among the Chinese voters is not out of the question.

This would bring down the level of BN support among the Chinese here to approximately 35 percent. And with this, a 2.5 percent swing in voter support favour of PAS.

The Orang Asli factor

Finally, the Orang Asli vote is probably hardest to read. It went as high as 84 percent in 2004 in Galas before plunging to 64 percent in 2008.

PAS has found these areas hard to penetrate and the federal government, with the help of Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (JHEOA), has been keeping a close eye on the hard-to-reach Orang Asli polling areas.

I have also found a slight increase of about 200 in the number of Orang Asli registered voters since the 2008 general elections. Sources close to the ground inform me that JHEOA were responsible for registering these voters.

But it is hard to tell if these voters would necessarily be supportive of the BN.

The Orang Asli are caught between a rock and a hard place. The federal government, through agencies such as JHEOA, still exercises a lot of control over them by virtue of development funds while the state government has control over their use of land.

My impression is that both the federal as well as the state government do not see the Orang Asli as equal stakeholders in the process of raising their living standards and empowering them.

NONE Despite last-minute assurances by Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz that the land issues involving the Orang Asli will be solved, I'm not sure if the Orang Asli voters are convinced that this is not just an empty election promise.

PAS has been reluctant to campaign on the issue of the demolition of an Orang Asli church in the nearby Nenggiri state constituency perhaps because they gave tacit approval to the JHEOA to demolish that church.

As such, I estimate a swing of approximately 6 percent among Orang Asli voters, in favour of the BN, from 64 percent in 2008 to 70 percent in 2010. This will push up BN's overall vote share by approximately 1 percent.

If we add up the estimated swings among the Malay, Chinese and Orang Asli voters, the BN will only obtain 48 percent of the popular vote and lose this seat by approximately 370 votes (majority is based on a turnout of 85 percent, 2 percent of which will be spoiled votes, giving an effective turnout of 83 percent).

BN bound to win Batu Sapi

I have to admit that predicting the winning majority in Batu Sapi is much more difficult than predicting the same in Galas even though the race in Batu Sapi will not be as close as that in Galas. BN should retain this seat by a comfortable majority, even though the majority would be about half of the 3,708 majority it won in 2008.

The BN managed to win only 40 percent of the Chinese vote in this constituency that is about 40 percent Chinese during the 2008 general election.

Because of the presence of a former chief minister in the person of Yong Teck Lee and aggressive campaigning by peninsula Pakatan leaders, especially those from the DAP, I anticipate that the level of BN support among the Chinese will fall to just 20 percent.

NONE SAPP will garner 45 percent of the Chinese vote with the PKR candidate winning the remainder 35 percent (like it or not, racial voting, in that Chinese voters would still prefer to vote for Chinese candidates, and in this case a Chinese opposition candidate, still occurs in a supposedly less ethnically 'tense' environment in Sabah).

Among the non-Chinese voters, I anticipate a swing of approximately 10 percent against the BN, which will reduce the share of BN support from 65 percent in 2008 to just 55 percent in 2010.

If a Chinese independent candidate can obtain 35 percent of the non-Chinese vote in 2010 just on the basis of anti-government sentiment, it will not be surprising that a 10 percent swing against the BN would occur when a former chief minister is one of the opposition candidates and a non-Chinese candidate from Pakatan is standing as well. I estimate that Pakatan will obtain 25 percent of the non-Chinese vote with the SAPP taking the remaining 20 percent.

My estimates show that the BN (PBS in this case) will win slightly more than 41 percent of the vote, with SAPP in second place with 30 percent and PKR trailing closely behind in third place with 29 percent. The estimated majority is approximately 1,800 votes.

Turnout is estimated to be 63 percent with 3 percent of total ballots spoiled giving an effective turnout of 60 percent.

Implications for GE 13

I remarked during a briefing I gave at UCSI University to a group of journalists, embassy personnel and members of the think-tank community that even though the race in Galas will be closer and harder to predict, the Batu Sapi results will prove to be of greater significance for the 13th general election.

NONE The Galas by-election will only confirm the waning political influence of Ku Li ( left in photo ).

If, as I predict, PAS retains Galas, it will send the message that Ku Li's ability to swing the tide for Umno in his own backyard is limited, probably ending whatever remaining hopes he has to play a more significant role within the party.

Even if Umno wins, the margin will not be very large which will once again call into question Ku Li's influence among the Malay voters in general. Ku Li's waning political influence, especially within Umno, is already something which is known. Hence, no new implications here especially with regard to the 13th general election.

The only question this by-election throws up is whether Umno would want to retain Ku Li as a candidate for Gua Musang in the next general election (or if Ku Li himself wants to stay on).

azlan Batu Sapi is more significant because it sets the stage for the next general election. SAPP can only play in the Sabah political playing field and as such it has set its sights on contesting 40 (out of 60) state seats in the next general election.

The better SAPP performs in Batu Sapi, the harder it will be for Pakatan to convince SAPP to avoid the kind of three-cornered fights in marginal seats, especially in the urban areas, that are likely to won by the opposition if it were only a straight fight between the BN and one single opposition candidate from an established party.

The best Pakatan can hope for is that it can somehow pull ahead of SAPP and emerge second in Batu Sapi and then use this to convince SAPP as well as voters in Sabah that Pakatan are the legitimate and most important opposition force in this state.

If my prediction is correct and SAPP does emerge in second place with Pakatan in a close third, this political stalemate will likely result in many three-cornered fights in the next general election.

So there's my analysis. I won't lose any sleep if my predictions are off. I will patiently wait for the polling station and saluran results to be sent to me. I will then analyse these results and find out where I went right and where I went wrong.

 

ONG KIAN MING holds a PhD in political science at Duke University. He is currently pioneering a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) program at UCSI University. He is also a regional consultant with the Blue Ocean Strategy Regional Center (BOSRC) and a director of his own consulting company, OKM Consulting. He can be reached at im.ok.man@gmail.com