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Thursday, July 24, 2014

In Selangor crisis poll, analysts find unjust sacking of UM research chief

The Universiti Malaya's Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMcedel) survey which showed Pakatan Rakyat (PR) was losing support in Selangor proves its former director did not bring bias to the centre’s research and that his sacking was uncalled for, say analysts.
They also said Putrajaya gained nothing from the hasty and unwarranted removal of Professor Datuk Dr Redzuan Othman (pic, right), and it only proved that Barisan Nasional (BN), especially Umno, treated public universities as their spheres of influence.
Independent pollster Ibrahim Suffian said UMcedel had done a good job under Redzuan, and that his sacking was uncalled for.
"So this survey vindicates him," said Ibrahim, the head of opinion research firm Merdeka Center.
Ibrahim said the findings of UMcedel’s survey, which was conducted a year after the 2013 general election, reflected the sentiment of the public in the Selangor.
The study, conducted from May 10 to 19 when Selangor was witnessing political turmoil over Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim's tenure in office, found that support for Selangor PR has dropped to 35% from 50% recorded in September 2012, when the last study was done by the centre.
Redzuan presented the findings to analysts last week.
Ibrahim (pic, left) said Redzuan was the right man for the job because he was a historian and “not just someone who did surveys”.
"Redzuan brings his historian perspective to the work he is doing, so it is not merely  collecting statistics but in deeper terms he understands the history of the area he is studying, which makes him an expert in the field,” Ibrahim told The Malaysian Insider.
"And he was about to retire so it was rather uncalled for to remove him at that point of time."
Redzuan's services were terminated last month although his contract was only expiring this December 31.
His tenure as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences was also not renewed on July 1, even though he was said to have received the highest votes from the academic staff‎ to continue heading the faculty.
Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng said the government should not have interfered with academics and their work.
"If there was a need to question his findings, they should have rebutted his work and analysis, the government gets nothing from his sacking."
The Malaysian Insider reported that Redzuan earned the ire of Putrajaya over the unflattering findings by UMcedel against the government.
In the run-up to the 13th general election, BN was rattled by UMcedel's findings which showed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak trailing behind opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
It also showed that 43% of respondents believed that Anwar was qualified to be prime minister, pipping Najib by four percentage points.
Najib rubbished the findings and many BN supporters had questioned the methodology.
The latest UMcedel survey showed that support for PR in Selangor has plunged by 15% from a year ago when it trounced BN to hold power in the country's wealthiest state.
Ibrahim said that Merdeka Center had also done some work before GE13 and although they did not pose the exact same questions as UMcedel, they found that in many instances, their results were typically very close and matched UMcedel.
But Ibrahim said it was common for politicians not to dwell on statements they had made in the past, and instead, go on the defensive if polls were unfavourable.
"Regardless of whether it is PM Najib or even opposition leaders, when surveys show that they are not doing so well and their numbers are low, they tend to dismiss the survey and say that they disagree with it," he said, referring to Najib's dismissal of the previous poll done by UMcedel.
Centre for Policy Initiatives director Dr Lim Teck Ghee (pic, right) said it was highly unlikely that the recent Umcedel survey findings would make BN feel bad over Redzuan's premature dismissal.
"It does not leave BN red-faced because they are a political party thriving on spin and have little or no concept of public embarrassment as seen from their past conduct."
Dr Oh Ei Sun from Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, meanwhile, said that was “never a doubt: among the majority that Redzuan had acted professionally in his work, adding that the latest survey findings reaffirmed it.
But, he refrained from linking BN's direct hand with the sacking, saying there was no evidence of BN masterminding Redzuan's removal.
Instead, he said that the university authority or Ministry of Education may have acted high-handedly.
"BN has been in power for so long and many civil servants are used to equating BN with government forever, so they do at times act hastily against perceived unfavourable opinions vis-à-vis BN because they think they can thereby impress their political masters."

The analyst said that BN could not celebrate the latest survey findings because their improvement in the findings did not commensurate with PR's decline.
The survey revealed that while support for PR in Selangor had plunged, support for BN in the state had increased from 15% in 2012 to 25%.
Ibrahim agreed, adding that while there were positives for BN from the survey, it also revealed that more voters have become undecided.
"The results show that while the leadership crisis in Selangor continues to erode public confidence in them, the public is also at the same time not totally convinced that BN has learned its lessons in Selangor and turned over a new leaf."
Redzuan said when presenting the survey findings that the survey “found that those who now don't support PR have shifted their opinion to the 'unsure' category, which forms 40% (including 15% who did not want to answer), besides changing their allegiance to BN”.
Lim said that while it remains to be seen whether BN can capitalise on the UMcedel survey findings, the more important question was whether PR can regain public support in Selangor.
- TMI

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