Using polls to gauge Malaysian public sentiment

If my memory serves me correctly, the first time I heard of Merdeka Center (American spelling please!) for Opinion Research was just after the 2004 elections.
PM Abdullah had won big and we needed fresh analyst types to quote.
A colleague found and began quoting the boss of Merdeka - Ibrahim Suffian, or Ben, as he is known to his friends and the media.

Since then, the name of the Bangi-based outfit keeps growing with all manner of polls.
And while some may question how come you know the pulse of 27 million people by calling just 1,084 or some such small number, most people accept his data.


Last week, two events have brought polling into the centrestage of Malaysia public (politicial?) life.
It will become a permanent feature of civil society in Malaysia, I should hope.
And this is good, because in the past, the government tended to steamroll public opinion by saying things like 'This is what the rakyat (people) wants!' or worse: 'I don't care whether the public wants it, I know this is good for them'.

Event 1) The gauge of PM Najib Razak's popularity. He scored 65 per cent from 46 per cent just a month ago, in a poll carried out by Merdeka.
Since the data was a positive for Najib, the story was not hidden in page 10. But put on page 1!
Since Merdeka would use scientific methods (totally random sampling, widespread geographical areas, polling all ages and races, the questions neutral) for its polls, the results have been accepted as truths.

Event 2) Dr Mahathir Mohamad using his website to put up a polls on PPSMI, the teaching of math and science in English. The government had decided to drop this after six years and Mahathir, the man behind the PPSMI, said he wanted to ask the rakyat themselves what they think.
Of course, unlike Merdeka's survey, the chedet.cc one can be assumed to be less scientific.
Why?
(a) his ardent supporters are the ones who visit his website, ie people who would tend to agree with whatever he says.

(b) The rule for this polling says one could vote just once.
But even if people were to use one machine to vote (presumably the polling would electronically block a second vote from the same machine), a person could actually vote easily at least three times.
He can vote once in the office, one using his home computer and a third time using his laptop (Each and every machine, if you don't know this already, has a unique number! Look behind your PC or under your laptop! You cannot run away!!!).

(c) Another reason why the voting is un-scientific (ie totally random sampling, for one): only parents who are UNHAPPY with the government for scrapping PPSMI would most likely visit chedet to register their anger.
Those who are happy enough, may or not visit to click a vote.

(d) Also, only people with internet connections could vote, so people in rural areas would be left out (Unlike Merdeka which presumably make phone calls to rural areas, or maybe even meeting those polled face to face).
This means that the results can be expected to be skewed.
Still, it means that the rakyat has suddenly been given its voice in important issues!
For Dr M himself, who used to rule without much care about public opinion - this must be a Eureka moment!

Whatever it is, I hope, like in developed countries, this polling of public opinion on key issues will be continued in Malaysia. That is, opinion polls will become as common as going to the ballot boxes to pick MPs and assemblymen.




CASE STUDIES
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If you talk about stats analysis, which I did for one year in my post-secondary studies, you must go into case studies lah!


1) PERHAPS, the worst abuse of 'This is what the rakyat wants' was carried out by then-PM Abdullah Badawi.
In April 2006, he suddenly decided to scrap the crooked bridge in Johor to replace the Causeway, by saying this was what the rakyat wanted.
This was of course the same premier who just weeks prior to this had said repeatedly that the project would go ahead. - See here.

"The government's decision was made after taking into account the voices and sentiments of the Malaysian people as a whole especially on the supply of sand and air space," he said in a one-paragraph statement.

Everybody, including Dr M, had asked: Eh, bila depa tanya rakyat tentang isu ini?

Now that Pak Lah has stepped down, those Johor rakyat whose views were kicked aside had spoken out saying they don't mind the crooked bridge. Or at least they want solutions to ensure that downtown Johor Baru - the roads immediately past the old checkpoint - will not continue to die.
They are saying this is better than having a Third Link with Singapore near Pengerang-Desaru.

As for Pak Lah's statement, actually everyone then forgot to focus on the last part of what he wanted to say - Singapore had asked for sand and re-opening of Johor airspace, in return for agreeing to build a full-bridge.


2) Then again, maybe Pak Lah does not hold the record as the worst abuser of public opinion.
When he was PM, Dr M cast caution 100 per cent to the wind to sack Anwar Ibrahim in September 1998.
His view was that Anwar was a sodomist, a chaser of women also, was an American spy, hoarded millions of dollars, wanted to kick out Dr M.
Dr M did not bother with public opinion in that how can someone who was annointed by Dr M himself to be the next prime minister, suddenly turned out OVERNIGHT to become gay-womaniser-spy-greedy-backstabber?
If he had used a pollster then....


3) In Indonesia, the April 2009 legislative elections and July 2009 presidential polls saw the big rise of the political consultants aka pollsters aka public-opinion shapers.
Everyone (the lazy media lah especially) rushed to these pollsters to see where the winds of politics were blowing.
Some of these units are paid by the political parties, but still, rather than using guesswork, the media lapped up and legitimise these pollsters.
Read this article from The Straits Times, Singapore, written by my friend and colleague Bruce Gale on this Indonesian phenom: 'The rise of the political consultant'
(Bruce can speak better Bahasa Indonesia that I could! He has even written books. Bruce was in fact with a political consultant/pollster before, Political & Economic Risk Consultancy. He is now with a member of the Senior Writers Group in my paper and has a column on Indonesian issues called Mata Jeli, the All-Seeing Eye, he says).