In the 2008 elections, there was something odd about Pekan. In 1999, Najib won with a majority of 241, and in 2004 this majority grew to 22,922, and in 2008, when the whole country, especially the Peninsular, suffered a loss of support for BN, Najib's majority increased to 26,464.
In 1999, 26,055 persons cast their votes (and that was 73.2% of all voters), and in 2008, 47,869 (82.2%) voted, and in light of the revelations today - one wonder whether there was some hanky panky. There could have been a change of heart amongst those who voted in 1999, or there may be just too many 'new voters' in 2008, about 21,814 and almost all of them voted for Najib and BN. Why did this happen when the general trend was towards a rejection of BN?
Below, a posting entitled "The Pekan Electoral Miracle", which I found whilst surfing the net which may be interesting readinbg. I have not had the time to check the facts contained therein. I must state that the posting of this blog-post by one 'guansin' in no way should be construed as being my endorsement or support for what is stated therein. It is merely one persons comments and views, and we should always consider different views, comments and analysis and make up our own mind.
In comparison, my views on this matter,as appeared in an earlier posting of mine, relying on information obtained from the SPR website is to be found below.
The Pekan electoral miracle
Today I want to be a little academic, by defining a term that I coin: Pekan electoral miracle.
It refers to a phenomenon whereby the incumbent candidate of a parliamentary seat has managed to turn around his fortune from a slim majority of 241 votes in 1999 to a majority of 22,922 in 2004, and eventually to a majority of 26,464 in 2008 (”the extreme peak”).
The phenomenon occurs in, guess what, Pekan, of course, hence the name “Pekan electoral miracle”. The incumbent candidate is none other than the prime minister-in-waiting and the current finance minister Najib Tun Razak.
See details below.
The phenomenon is special in two ways:
- the upswing of 2004 (from 1999) is extraordinary in scale, usually beyond any practicality in any real electoral campaign;
- the increase in majority in 2008, even after the extraordinary upswing of 2004, goes against the norm of 2008 general elections.
First point is easy to illustrate, as shown in the chart below:
The upswing of 2004 is 9,500% in 1999 term. The extraordinary scale is partially diluted by the increase in total votes from 1999 to 2004. Factoring this in (by measuring as a proportion to the total votes), the upswing of 2004 is still a staggering 6,494%. In one is to translate this into reality, it means either drastic change of mind in large proportion of the voters in Pekan, or the incumbent was doing extremely well on the campaign, or something unexplained is at play.
To illustrate point 2, I put Pekan into two sets of comparative analysis. In the first analysis, Pekan is analysed along its neighbouring constituencies. The idea here is that if there are large number of people changing their mind, it should not be restricted to people within a particular area. I want to prove this (large number of people changing their mind) is not the case. In the second analysis, Pekan is compared to three other seats held by BN leaders of equal stature to the incumbent of Pekan. The idea here is to test two factors: Malaysia’s elections are generally going by party line and swing of voters are more or less consistent across the country.
According to the electoral map on undi.info below, Rompin, Kuantan, Paya Besar and Maran are its neighbours.
Below is the details of first analysis comparing Pekan to its neighbouring seats:The trend demonstrated by Pekan from 1999 to 2008 is clearly extraordinary.
In the second comparative analysis, Pekan (Najib Tun Razak) is compared against Kepala Batas (Abdullah Badawi), Pagoh (Muhyiddin Md Yassin) and Johor Bahru (Shahrir Abdul Samad).
Pekan was clearly going against the trend in 2008.
With these extraordinary observations in Pekan, the only conclusion is “miracle”. Hence the phenomenon called Pekan electoral miracle.
Since miracle does not and should not happen too often, we can only hope that Kuala Terengganu, which is holding its by-election polling tomorrow, is not another one. - Source: AirKosong.com Blog
See also an earlier post in 2008, in which I discussed this oddity in the results of PEKAN, an extract from this post is as follows:-
My only concern is the corruption, the threats and promises which may be there in the coming Permatang Pauh Parliamentary election - and beware, Najib may lead the campaign for the BN and there are still questions how Najib did so well in the last GE2008 by winning with a majority of 26,464, compared to a majority of 22,922 (2004) and 241 (1999).
GE2008:
| P85 - PEKAN | Turnout : 47869 (82.2%) Spoilt: 1261 | Voters: 58217 |
| * Mohd Najib Abdul Razak (BN - UMNO) | 36262 | Maj: 26464 |
| Khairul Anuar Ahmad Zainudin (OPP - PKR) | 9798 |
| |||||||||||
Well, when results all over the country saw an increase in votes for the opposition and a decrease of votes for the BN candidate - Mohd Najib Abdul Razak saw an increase. Either, the constituents really liked this man OR... Anyway, the involvement of Najib in the Permatang Pauh by-elections must be a concern for Anwar .. - Wan Azizah, Permatang Pauh, Anwar and "arrest'
General Elections 1999
12907 13148
Total Votes cast % Votes cast Spoilt Votes Majority Votes 26055 73.2 631 241
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