Comments

Dear Chris, thanks for your follow-up comments. It’s great to get a conversation going. I think you make some very interesting points, too. Your explanation of how the Gerindra campaign may have impacted support for the other parties seems plausible in accounting for a small reallocation of ballots, though I think that local factors played far and away the most significant role in determining eventual vote shares. These include the campaigns conducted by individual candidates, parties’ grassroots solidarity, and their success in getting voters to turn out (something PKS does well), etc. As you correctly point out, this result really seems to confirm that voter preferences re. presidential candidates have little meaningful effect upon their decisions at legislative elections. With regard to your final point, I think there are several reasons for Nasdem’s success (btw this was the party’s first election). I will try and address these in a post to be published shortly. Thanks again. Tom.

Thaksin is a traitor; not to the Thai electorate, but to the elite who gave him his first chance, which was a much bigger one than they had intended. It set him up so well, that instead of going back to the elite, cap-in-hand, for his next power hand-out, he went directly to the electorate. That act of perfidy to his former masters is what the orchestrated campaign of hatred for him is all about. He ratted on them, and gave the ordinary people of up-country Thailand their first taste of the benefits of democracy. The outrage from the elite has reached such a level of insanity, that they are tearing their own country apart, rather than give up anything to their former slaves. Thaksin is a shady character, but compared to the traditional Thai elite he is a saint.

Sceptic re “Though not actually for personal gain”: Only in Amazing Thailand could someone make this claim about Thaksin and still call themself a sceptic or Sceptic. LOL Everyone in Thailand knows that Thailand is rotten to the core with corruption, and in such an environment the corrupt thrive at our expense – yet Thaksin apologists still claim Thaksin as some kind of exception while lambasting someone like Abhisit (although not his uncle who works for Thaksin)for coming from a wealthy family when Thaksin’s family is hundreds of times more wealthy – or do they still believe that his driver and other family retainers were/are the real owners of the tens of millions of dollars (not baht if I am not mistaken) which he was found to have illegally concealed by placing it with them. The man is a proven serial liar: Moreover he exhibits very strong psychopathic tendencies. I mean, other foreigners may believe that Thaksin is some sort of altruist as you suggest and many Thais will tell foreigners that, but there would be very few Thai who actually believe it: They may be the products of a terribly dysfunctional education system, but they’re far from being ignorant enough to believe that themselves. BTW according to the claim made here by your fellow one-eyed Thaksinista, neptune, that seriously fishy fellow must be at least 70 years old, so it seems you both have a problem with facts – which isn’t surprising really.

PS. A lack of attrition from other established parties to the PDI-P also could help explain your contention that former Democratic Party voters returned to traditional Muslim parties after disillusionment with the Dems — because they felt they had no where else to go. The Dems support halved yet they still performed better than many observers had expected(!) However, along with Gerindra one relatively new secular-nationalist alternative, the National Democrats, also did very well, ending up with similar levels of support to the Muslim parties, from negligible numbers last time around.

Hi Tom,

Appreciate the response and the points you make. Certainly parties expected to be unpopular this time around polled better than expected — not withstanding some of the errors made by several pollsters who expected support for presidential candidates would automatically translate directly into increased votes for their parties.

As far as whether voters opted to support individual party candidates (at the national legislative level, I guess you mean)I’m not too sure about this. Most of the people I knew had no idea who their party candidates were and there was very little supporting information about this in media to aid a decision.

But, as you point out, the party machinery did its work — organizations that were known for being good at getting out the vote — Golkar and PKS, PKB — did so, and did well.

Gerindra also did well, probably a combination of machinery and strong link to presidential candidate Prabowo.

But I do think that Gerindra’s negative campaign directed at Jokowi did have a wider impact on the overall poll and, therefore, the Islamic parties. Primarily because it reenforced the status quo, and because of what it prevented from occurring.

Here’s my counterfactual reasoning. The Gerindra campaign was a focused message that successfully promoted the idea that PDI-P was capitalizing on a popular presidential candidate but that the party (and Mega) didn’t deserve a vote.

I believe it was effective in shaping how voters saw the election — indeed I reckon there is compelling evidence that it set the entire tone for the legislative contest in the closing days before voting.

By casting doubts on Jokowi as a credible alternative — as a vote for a failed and unpopular party — the campaign was successful because it helped reenforce existing voting patterns for the legislative elections.

By voting PDI-P the reasoning went you were voting for party that would make Jokowi a puppet of Megawati, thefore, a vote for PDI-P wasn’t in fact a vote for Jokowi. Voting for PDI-P would lead to a less effective president, not a stronger one.

This campaign also helped reinforce existing confusion about the link between parties in the DPR and a president’s ability to govern. But by making Jokowi a less popular alternative, it also increased existing apathy and conservatism.

Why did the Islamic parties benefit from this?

By casting doubts on Jokowi’s suitability there was another reason not to vote at the party level, to see this election as offering any new alternatives.

Some estimates say the campaign cost the PDI-P a significant level of potential new support — five to eight percentage points.

So did many of these voters simply stay away? I believe so; the non-vote in 2014 was slightly higher than last presidential election and spoiled votes were at an all-time high of 8 percent.

How much a Jokowi effect could have increased total voting is difficult to say. But if we can accept that a negative campaign did help reduce the overall turnout in the election; lets say conservatively by only one or two percent, then this would translate into marginal improvements to the Islamic and other established parties’ numbers, because they ended up with a greater share of a smaller total vote.

More importantly, attrition to the PDI-P from the existing parties via a potential “Jokowi effect” was also limited because his attraction as a new and positive alternative was weakened. Voters that did participate were more likely to stay faithful to existing parties rather than take a punt on the PDI-P because of Jokowi, the effect was limited. Conservatism reigned. And the “unpopular” status quo benefited. The “Better the devil you know,” effect.

Not very scientific, and highly couterfactual, I know, but I think its worth considering.

Burma is a country without territorial and moral integrity.
By the way, is smuggling and human trafficking legal in Communist China? How much does a Burmese bride cost in Kunming? Just asking!