Wednesday, January 13, 2010

massive mahinda victory to close election? how sunday leader columnist indi.padashow twisted election projection data

on january 7th indi.ca blog (run by the sunday leader columnist who also runs the scurrilous padashow blog) published a "hypothetical analysis ...on what could happen" at presidential election. the conclusion of that election projection was in his own words "very hypothetical, but looks competitive" with both major candidates getting close to 50% of vote.

in this post we will look at the data in this "analysis" and show that a 'competitive' / 'close' (as he keeps on repeating his posts) election can only be projected by manipulating data to suit that outcome.

without such obvious manipulation even his data shows a massive victory for mahinda rajapaksa.

i am making available a screenshot of the post and a copy of word document attached to that post separately in case anybody decides to change things.

i also made a comment there (which said most of what i write here, in brief) and was censored as usual. his censorship is personal. he does allow some critical comments by others but nothing from me. since i don't make comments under any other name all my comments get censored. of course he has a right to do as he please in his blog.

before going into data we have to ask, who did the 'analysis'?

not indi.padashow. he has trouble calculating simple percentages and having grown up in foreign countries is generally ignorant about most things sri lankan. this is one of his recent statements about the election. (click to enlarge)

lol. anyone who has even heard about the law or has seen the ballot and voted in a presidential election here, knows that it is possible to indicate 3 preferences.

funny isn't it, that such an ignoramus is presuming to lecture sri lankans about law and politics. funnier still that so called 'newspaper' sunday leader ( which has taken a management decision to back sarath foneka ) would employ him as columnist. even funnier that unp used this person, son of a political appointee (corrupt by son's standard for accusing others of corruption), to run their online campaign (nothing more than a website really ) in 2005. (he used to actually edit comments posted in that unp website so that even unfavorable comments appear favorable. not my comments, but then frequent blogger morquendi's, hardly a friend of mine). [indi does not deny any of this if pressed (given the evidence in his own blog and others, he can't anyway), but is not into voluntary full disclosure either as demanded by journalistic ethics. iow a worthy and fitting columnist for the rag sunday leader.]

if not indi who made the election projection?
in the post he says "i think the document is from parliament somehow". my request for more information on that point went unanswered.

the properties of word doc attached to post says it was authored by "ajiwadeen_m". we have no idea who that is .

there is also the fact that same numbers and same documents appeared in at least two or three other places (including some pro ltte terrorist blogs/websites, not the ones blocked in sl). indi makes no reference to this in his post though at least one was clearly earlier than his.

indi also tweeted this,


since he does not provide the details of author, but published them on his blog, we will consider them his, until we get further information .

a look at the data.
i will confine myself to most obvious unexplained discrepancies.

he provides two forecasts based on ethnic and district votes (forecast I & II). lets start with first one.

Major Ethnic Groups

Valid

MR

SF

Votes

Votes

%

Votes

%

Sinhalese

8,424,360

4,633,398

55.0%

3,731,991

44.3%

SL Tamils

868,198

182,322

21.0%

607,738

70.0%

Muslims

1,039,375

291,025

28.0%

744,193

71.6%

Ind. Tamils

618,859

326,138

52.7%

290,864

47.0%

Others

33,090

12,905

39.0%

19,854

60.0%

TOTAL

10,983,881

5,445,788

49.58%

5,394,640

49.11%


there is no explanation as to where he got these numbers.

according to this muslims comprise 9.4% of valid votes. according to department of statistics and they make up about 7-8% of population.

imo the figure for sl tamils is way too high and indian tamil figure way too low. we do not know true figures bc 2001 census is incomplete due to terrorist control of several districts then. as such there is no valid source for this sort of a breakdown.

for now we will proceed with these rather shaky looking figures

muslim vote
he says 71.6% of muslims will vote for sarath fonseka? why? he does not give a valid explanation even in word doc. muslim politicians and parties are split. if anything more elected muslim mps support mahinda rajapaksa than oppose him. nor is there any proof of such an anti mahinda tendency among muslims in recent elections.
a more realistic and rational projection would split the vote 50/50, or 45/55. nobody rational will go beyond 40/60. but indi padashow projection does.

now assume it was 40/60, instead of 28/72, among muslims, what will be the results? 1-1.5% increase in mahinda total vote percentage with similar decline in fonseka's

indian tamil vote
( i prefer to call them up country sri lankan tamil but will stick with this name for now)
here he says vote will split 52.7/47.
now ceylon worker's congress (cwc) the main political party of indian tamils, as well as second biggest, upcountry people's front (upf) are supporting president. only few defectors from them are with fonseka. and historically cwc has delivered 70+% of the indian tamil vote. in every election it had defections (usually the same ppl) but that does not seem to hamper its vote delivery. but indi padshow's number cruncher assumes for unknown reasons this time will be different. why? no reason given

now assume this vote splits conservatively at 60/40, instead of 53/47 as in indi projection, or more realistic 70/30, what will be the results? 0.5+% increase in mahinda total vote percentage with similar decline in foneska's.

these two almost certain but still very conservative roll back of unexplained irrational manipulations will result in a 51.5/47 split in total votes. a 4.5% or about 500,000 vote margin. realistic vote splits among muslims and indian tamils will double even that .

sri lankan tamil vote
i am not going to say anything about sri lankan tamil vote split. i don't know how it will split. it could be same as this prediction says(21/70/9) or it could be 40/50/10 or even 45/45/10.

anything is possible, so i am not going to speculate on any manipulations there
.

ordinary tamils here, in india, or in diaspora, have generally rejected racist terrorist supporters ( like tna/itak) by not voting or voting for others if they get a chance .

as i said before i don't think sri lankan tamil vote will be high as these numbers. quite possibly it will be lower than indian tamil votes.

but lets leave him with his 21/70/9 split without change .

sinhalese vote
here he gives a 55/44 split. in recent provincial council elections the split in mostly sinhalese areas was 68-70/31-29.

however this is best examined by looking at his district based forecast (forecast II).

let us concentrate on kurunegala district (with no special connection to either candidate)

this is the last provincial council election result -
valid votes 709,186, upfa 497,366 (70%), unp+jvp 209,632 (30%)
in the padashow projection -
valid votes 938,397, mr 495,474 (53%), sf 436,355 (47%)

in other words, valid votes go up by 230k (which is ok since more ppl vote in national elections than in provincial elections),
but upfa vote fall by 2k (and 17% as share). almost all the extra votes go to sf, increasing his vote share by 17%

is that realistic? of course not.

reasons for this manipulation?
in word doc he says he reduced mahinda's vote in each district by 10-15% from what upfa got in 2008/09 provincial elections. no explanation why a major party will get less votes from a larger number of valid votes in a national election than in a provincial election.
he also says that since unp doubled its vote numbers from 2004 provincial election to 2005 presidential election, he is assuming it will do so again.

here are the actual figures for kurunegala
2004 pc election - valid 604,979, upfa 362,084, unp+slmc 240,078.
2005 presidential election - valid 896,497, mr 468,507, rw 418,809.
valid votes went up by 290k, upfa votes went up by 105, unp went up by 178k.

iow, he replicates 2004-2005 unp vote increase in pc to presidential elections, but does not want to do likewise with upfa's. bias much?

now let us assume that 2004-2005 scenario gets reenacted without the irrational manipulation .

we assume that valid vote increase from 2009-2010 is as he says, 230k, then instead of all of that going to sf as in indi projection, only 2/3rds goes to sf as in 2005. that would be about 154k. upfa will get other 1/3rd, 76k.

then the results for kurunegala in 2010 will be, valid votes 938,397, mr 573,000 (61%), sf 364,000 (39%) (in every step i rounded up for sf while rounding down for mr).

this is a percentage difference of 8% and in number of votes, 77k (compared to indi projection) for kurunegala .

same with other districts. it is less observable in districts where pc elections were held in 2008 before the war ended, but still there.

so even if we add only 1/3rd of increase in vote from pc to presidential elections to mr, and add the rest to sf , we get an 5%+ increase in mr vote share, over what indi.padashow gave mr in his projection.

this conservative change applied to his all island district based forecast (forecast II) results will give us a overall vote split of 53/46.
remember this accepts without question his figures for north and east provinces, as well as colombo and central (which as you may guess were similarly manipulated but will require lot of space to untangle, so i am not doing that here)

if we apply the above logic to sinhalese votes in forecast I, we get a 60/39 split in that segment. adding 418k (3-4%) to mr's total vote share, while reducing sf total by that amount.
even if we, to be on the safe side, reduce it by half, we still get 57/42. adding 210k (2%) to mr vote share while reducing sf's by same.

if we combine sinhalese, muslim, and indian tamil, sanitized vote numbers we get a overall split of 53.5/45. a 900k, 8 .5%, margin .which can hardly be called 'close' .


here are the sanitized results for forecast I - 53.5/45
here are the sanitized results for forecast II - 53/46


imo the vote margin will be bigger, as i have been saying from the start

remember i have not sanitized most of the manipulations, only the most obvious and easily demonstrated ones (esp in forecast II). i have also not sanitized his initial questionable valid vote numbers.

also as anyone who followed this carefully would have realized, when sanitizing manipulations i took a very conservative route (from rounding down votes for mr & up for sf, to cutting the possible mr increases by half )

given all that, it is safe to say even numbers of sarath foneska's devoted supporter indi.padashow, stripped of obvious manipulations, indicate that sf is in for a trashing.


ps
by all means point to any errors on my part if any .
pss
i wonder if i get banned from kottu this time, for exposing indi padashow 's doings again. even though there is nothing false here. lol


my twitter - http://twitter.com/sittingnut
this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

13 comments:

Raju said...

Good work SN.

The propaganda is being set up now and increasing in intensity as poll day gets closer. They are setting everything up for an "Iran" here when Gonseka loses.

Best of all is Mangala says "stop malicious propaganda against me and Gonzy" following TNA deal AND HiCorp corruption of Janaral
Haha.

Apparently the whole Gonseka team UNP, JVP, Mangala) are gritting their teeth keeping together just till they throw Thuagaro out.

After the election euphoria with Thuagaro winning or loosing (he will win no doubt) i cannot wait to see the grand traitors alliance tare itself apart. Now that will be one nice spectacle.

DD said...

Having an opinion. Showing dissonance. Does that make one a traitor to their country or in your scenario, a traitor to the Rajapakses?
Some of the comments and posts you make are so far off its off this world. You should move to MJ's never never land. Eh?
I honestly think that you do more damage than good with your posts. Especially as you never really think about the audience that consume it.

sittingnut said...

raju:
they won't be able to do an 'iran' here bc,

1/ the margin of victory will be big.

2/ to do that they need ppl, lots of them, willing protest. if they can't even get big crowds for sf meetings they wont be able to do protests after a big loss. esp when even their ordinary supporters will think it was a fair result .

3/ ranil does not want sf to win. apart from that unp is almost asleep in the campaign . jvp is doing most of the work . as such even rabid unp supporters wont be in that sort of mindset.

sittingnut said...

dd:
in the first place i as far as i can remember i have not used the words 'traitor'
so why ask me about that?
:-)
i hardly ever use word 'patriot' or argue for or against something according to whether it is patriotic or not.

unlike some i have never expressed any loyalty to either rajapkasas or fonsekas or unp or upfa .
as such i don't and haven't called any one traitor on those counts

my loyalty lies with libertarian principles, not to any person or party or even country
if i have ever betrayed those participles you are free to point them out .

"Some of the comments and posts you make are so far off its off this world. "
such as ?
why not quote them. ? please do if you can get your head out of clouds

if you read this blog you will find that unlike most blogs, i tend to get things right ( from how war will play out to many other things ) .
why? bc i stick to facts and reason
since that is the case i am not in a fantasy world . now compare that to some other bloggers ( indi.ac for instance) that always get things wrong . you are of course free to believe in such fantasies .

"I honestly think that you do more damage than good with your posts."
what do you mean by "doing good" ? that was never a motive for me . i write what i want based on facts and reason nothing more.

and lots of ppl read it in ever increasing numbers . even boring long posts like this.
:-)

Anonymous said...

I read Indi's blog and immediately thought that poll was wrong. You have confirmed what I thought. I followed you on Muslim and Tamil votes. I got confused following your argument about the rest, but I am sure you are right.

Anonymous said...

SN i am not as sure as you that there will NOT be an attempted "Iran" in SL and have to agree with Raju. I say this because Western media is now "showing interest" in Sri Lanka (their candidates) and they all say the same thing, "Fonseka is leading in the polls" (despite all evidence pointing in the other direction). Conditions are being set for Iran style protests + violence and subsequent "election discredit".

Does not matter if the election is declared, "free and fair" by every monitor there is and everything is clean. A few protests here and there by JVP/UNP and some deaths + destruction caused by them and they will say the elections are "fraudulent". Knowing how these unscrupulous unethical sleuths work they will over represent any protests and violence –staged by JVP/UNP itself (e.g. carrying out violence, provoke Police response then cry they are being attacked/"dissent will be crushed").

They will do it. Just watch. In fact they will even draw parallels to Iran itself (that is how thick and egoistical they are). We will hear a lot of "since questioned/discredited elections in Sri Lanka there has been violence". Then they will do a Kenya on us and try and get the UN involved (they never give up with trying to bring that useless organisation into Sri Lanka -also part of Tamil homOland building AND bringing back the CFA environment aka the TNA deal).

Naturally our local traitors (i.e. UNP/JVP politicians) will be jumping up and down at the prospect, even though there may not be a country left. Short sighted selfish power greedy losers. A curse I suppose our people deserve.

But i can already see those of us who have been fighting the propaganda for the last 4 years ("war crimes", "human rights abuses" and all the rest of the BS tactics designed and used to give Tamil terrorists a free reign to kill, control and suicide bomb) having to defend the free will and choice of our people yet again against the well run ruthless propaganda and violence machines.

Anonymous said...

SN here is some proof of my point.

1 death, killers already caught, and these monkeys are making it sound like a genocide took place:

President, IGP should bear responsibility for Tangalle attack: AHRC
http://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=6853

I believe many of our local zoo dwellers are associated with this organisation and "supply" details. A SoB called Bradman Weerakoon (a really old kalu suddha still dreaming of the "good old days" and who happened to be a major Ranil backing NGO stooge connected to the CPA in SL) is heavily involved in AHRC as well as many Tamils who are ex-LTTE members/die-ass-pora handlers.

Whats funny is a major SF supporter on FB is outraged that the killers have been caught. Guess they are upset the propaganda milking has been cut short (especially in light of SFs dropping popularity following his about turn on abolishing the Executive Presidency, corruption charges and the TNA deal). Also more worrying but would not be surprising is their fear that the arrests may lead to revelation that the killing in Tangalle was a false flag operation.

Anonymous said...

Apart from al elese, the thing that most struck me is Gonsy.Fonseka is not a bad person , he is so badly misled that is all.
Therefore Gonsy is very appropriate.

Raj said...

Brilliant!! Thanks for this write up!

Anonymous said...

Western Countries have bankrolled US$140 million to defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa

Colombo, 15 January, Asiantribune.com): Latest reports reveal that US, UK, Norway, Netherland and France have bankrolled the election campaign expenses of the opposition party candidate retired General Sarath Fonseka.

Already these countries have given USD 140 million for the election campaign through their NGOs to defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa who refused to succumb to their threats.

Accordingly US$40 million has been given to the opposition candidate himself and the balance US$ 100 million has been divided and given to the organizers who are supporting the opposition candidate.

In the meantime the organizers, it seems, have decided to buy polling cards and National Identity Cards of the voters. They have a plan to storm the polling booths and dump the ballot boxes on the Election Day.

Already, according to reports opposition candidate’s camp has started buying the polling cards as well as the National Identity Cards in Ambalangoda.

Asian Tribune learnt that the asking price of the each set - one polling card and NIC is around Rs. 5000.

The organizers have set aside a total of US$50million alone for this corrupt activity.

There is no dearth for the money supply even to buy hundreds of thousands of the polling cards as there are countries ready to dump millions of dollars simply to defeat the patriot Rajpaksa.

- Asian Tribune -


http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2010/01/15/western-countries-have-bankrolled-us140-million-defeat-mahinda-rajapaksa

Anonymous said...

Jesus - mate, leave now and start taking medication!



W - O - L - F - M O THER!

Rajaratarala said...

Some wise man told me the key to this election may be in the block votes and it is an interesting argument to hear.

Look at blocks some got in prior general elections:

JVP 9% (2001 general)

TNA 7% (2004 general)

If people vote along party lines this may be a close election.

I hope the Sri Lankan people will get a free and fair democratic result.

Anonymous said...

"ajiwadeen_m" you were found in that word doc could be this person:


http://www.slelections.com/pe2010/ajiwadeen.html