KT election prediction - PAS win by 2,300 votes! - malaysiakini

The Kuala Trengganu by election has been called (Malaysiakini's analysis here) at the worse possible time for the ruling Barisan National, or more specifically, UMNO. At a time where internal and public confidence of the ruling coaliation is at an all time low, the prospect of a possible defeat and subsequently a net loss of 2 federal Parliamentary seats would be disasterous, and a rejection of everything UMNO, be it an Abdullah UMNO or a Najib UMNO. Najib's party next year would also be spoilt.

Looking at the makeup of this seat, it is obvious that the Malay vote is the most significant player. The 12% Chinese vote, mainly centered around the urban Bandar consituency, could become a tiebreaker in the event of a split Malay vote, which many are predicting, but we at The Politics Blog do not think that this is likely. Firstly, the Chinese vote in KT itself looks to be split itself; on one side, those that fear PAS' ambitions of an Islamic state and those who are so disillusioned and disatisfied that they are able to overcome their apprehensions about PAS' Islamic state ambition and vote for PAS. Just by looking at past results in this constituency, the Chinese vote has been typically split. Judging by the results in the Bandar state seat in the March 2008 General Elections, the Chinese appear to be slightly in favour of the ruling coaliation.

More importantly, where are the Malays leaning? They make up 88% of this constituency and are the gamemakers of this election. In addition, this election would be an interesting gauge of the Malay reaction to Anwar's sodomy part deux. The last time Anwar 'sodomised' someone, this seat turned green. With the lack of credible and substantive data on the Malay reaction to sodomy 2, this showdown in the Malay heartland would be a fairly accurate indicator of Anwar and his 'baggage'.

Another factor is the 'independant candidate factor'. During the 2008 March 8 elections, independant candidates polled more than the winning margin of the late BN candidate. Our ground polling put most of independant candidate's support Maimun Yusuf's supporters as upper and middle classed Malays and Chinese. Our ground reports showed that these were most likely to vote opposition. Hence, the independant candidate(s) in this race will play a factor, more so in the event of a tight race.

At the end of the day, everything comes down to numbers, numbers and numbers. With the nearest percentage makeup of this constituency being 87% Malay, 12% Chinese and 1% Indian, The Politics Blog is going to crunch the numbers from the (limited) data available and come out with a premature prediction that will change as the date to the by election draws closer.

Malay (88%): 52% PAS, 47% BN
Chinese (11%): 42% PAS, 56% BN
Indian (1%): 100% PAS, 0 (negligible)% BN

Which gives PAS a 51% chunk of the votes and BN 47%. This would translated to an (approximate of):

PAS WINS BY 2,300 VOTES