In the same way, the vote was for the Opposition - the Barisan Alternative - not for PAS, PKR or DAP individually --- irrespective of whether it was a PKR or DAP or PAS candidate that was standing...
I really do not understand the INTENTION of the writer and/or the publication - for it would only cause 'problems' between members of the BN or the BA..
The IMPORTANT FACT is this the BN only got 51.3% of the popular vote in the 2008 elections - compared to the 63.4%
Tuesday March 11, 2008
BN loses 12 percentage points in popular vote
KUALA LUMPUR: The popular vote for the Barisan Nasional dropped around 12 percentage points to 51% this election, but lead party Umno still drew the lion's share of the popular votes for both parliamentary and state seats.
Of the parties drawing the biggest of the popular votes in Parliament, Umno leads at 35.51% (2,462,749) followed by PAS (21.65% - 1,501,800), PKR (13.15% - 911,761) DAP (12.76% - 884,941) and MCA (9.14% - 633,985).
In the states, it was almost the same order with Umno leading at 29.99% (2,371,867) followed by PKR (18.6% - 1,471,150), PAS (14.75% - 1,166,918), DAP (14.01% - 1,107,960) and MCA (10.74% - 849,108).
However, the statistics show that Umno, PAS and PKR have greater popularity in Parliament while the DAP and MCA had greater popularity in the states.
In terms of actual votes, those voting for the opposition increased by over one million and that for the Barisan dropped by between 360,000 and 396,000.
This election, the popular vote for Barisan was biggest in Johor (15% - 613,813) and Selangor (12.8% - 522,091). The opposition scored big in Selangor (17.09% - 656,347) and Perak (11.74% - 450,929).
In the state election, the popular vote for Barisan dropped 12.5 percentage points from 63.8% in 2004 to 51.3% this time. In terms of votes, they lost 395,152 votes while the opposition gained 1,138,426 votes.
In the four "new" states that Barisan lost - Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor - the decrease in popular votes for the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and PPP was less than that for Umno, which ranged from two percentage points in Perak and Selangor to five percentage points in Kedah and seven in Penang.
In the distribution of popular votes within the DAP-PAS-PKR loose coalition in those four states, the DAP topped the list in Penang (54.62%0 and Perak (42.42%) while PAS led them in Kedah (69.89%) and PKR in Selangor (35.93%).
Although those voting for PAS in Kedah increased by 15% (32,792), its popular votes decreased 12.6 percentage points this time.
As for PKR, those voting for the party almost doubled from when it was known as Parti Keadilan in 2004. However, its popular vote dropped marginally by a 1.2 percentage points in Selangor.
Now that the opposition parties have won control of 5 state government and denied BN two third majority in the parliament, do the next stage by petition for a Royal Commission on Electoral Reform (RCER) in Malaysia.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to have a better future for our children in Malaysia, do you bit by signing the on-line petition at http://bersih.org.
Why do we need to reform the Election Commission?
1) the discrepancy between number of voters in urban and rural seats is too great. The smallest parliamentary seat (Federal Territory, Putrajaya) has only 6,608 voters while the parliamentary seat for Kapar in Selangor has 112,224 voters. What this means is that one vote in the Putrajaya parliamentary constituency is equivalent to 17 votes in the Kapar constituency.
2) A common tactic is to ‘buy’ the identity card of the voters. Party members will then vote on the voters’ behalf. Random checking of a person’s identity must be conducted using those finger print checking device. Any voting done on another person’s identity must be made a serious offence under the election law.
3) The rules on postal voting must be reviewed, tightened and amended. The current rule favours the ruling party as the armed forces personnel and policemen who vote by ‘postal voting’ would obviously not jeopardize their career or promotion prospect by voting for the opposition.