Thursday, 28 August 2008

Permatang Pauh: Puzzle in Seberang Jaya results

It's interesting to note that Seberang Jaya is not only the main urban town centre in the Permatang Pauh constituency but it also lends its name to my polling station, the Sek Keb Seberang Jaya (SKSJ). The Taman Siakap area is the oldest part of Seberang Jaya (the town) and while the Seberang Jaya mosque, the Seberang Jaya public swimming pool and the Sony-sponsored sport recreational centre are just a stone's throw away, the biggest landmark here is the SKSJ where both my daughter and son had their primary school education.

The People's Parliament revealed Tuesday the details of the voting pattern in Seberang Jaya (the polling station). I was surprised:

Box 1 : Anwar 158 / Arif 97
Box 2 : Anwar 258 / Arif 7
Box 3 : Anwar 335 / Arif 201
Box 4 : Anwar 369 / Arif 141
Box 5 : Anwar 356 / Arif 161

Box 2 was where I cast my vote. Remember, I did observe in an earlier post that my queue was especially long that morning. Everyone was complaining about it. Also, when I was waiting in the line, I could see that there was a good mix of voters of all races, both in front and behind me. So this type of result comes as a big surprise. Was the BN candidate so overwhelmingly abandoned by the very people he was supposed to champion or was this figure simply a misreport or a mistype? I cannot believe that there were only 265 voters registered for this line the whole day through whereas Boxes 3 to 5 contained at least 500 ballot papers each. It is also unbelievable that he had the support of only three percent of the Box 2 voters when in all the other boxes, he was consistently the choice of some 30 percent of the voters. In the interest of fair reporting, I think Haris Ibrahim (The People's Parliament blogger) should try to verify this result.

2 comments:

TheWhisperer said...

It's a typical case of being over- confident over his state constituency. Taking things for granted and the concentration went to PKR stronghold where money politics and phanthom voters looms. Check those other boxes in PKR stronghold and analyse the results.

Nevertheless, it's a lesson to be learn here.. The Moral here is 'Never Forget Your Roots'.

Anonymous said...

In short, remember this - believe the process and always question the candidates...I think this time round, candidates of different caliber were fielded..one in a rush to putrajaya whereas the other....don't know what the hell he wants...you go figure