KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 — One in three Twitter users in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Penang actively tweeting about Lim Guan Eng’s corruption charges disapprove of his prosecution, according to Politweet.
While about 34 per cent opposed the two charges against the Penang chief minister and DAP secretary-general, about 22 per cent supported it and almost half, or 44 per cent, expressed neutrality on the matter.
“Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Penang are states where support for the opposition was strong in GE13,” said social media researcher Politweet in a survey shared with Malay Mail Online.
“However, based on the Twitter users examined, support for Lim Guan Eng is divided with 34 per cent opposing the decision to charge him with corruption and 22 per cent supporting the decision to charge him.”
The study, which analysed tweets from the date Lim was arrested on June 29 until July 6, found that Chinese and Indian users showed strong opposition to the charges, with 76 per cent of Chinese and 49 per cent of Indian users leaning as such.
The Malay demographic had the highest proportion of neutrals, with 54 per cent of Malay users being neutral, 26 per cent supporting the charge and 20 per cent opposing.
In its findings, Politweet noted that the issue failed to gain traction on Twitter at a national level, with about 72 per cent of the tweets nationally originating from these three states. Pakatan Harapan controls Penang and Selangor, while most Kuala Lumpur lawmakers come from the federal opposition pact.
Politweet also noted that patterns in the data point to Lim lacking support from Malay youths aged between 18 and 30.
“Support from Chinese users was very reliable, while support from Indian users was divided,” it said.
“Low support from Malay youth could also explain the lack of interest in other states. Because Malays are the majority ethnic group on Twitter, if they don’t care much about DAP or Lim Guan Eng, they would be less motivated to tweet about the corruption scandal.”
The Politweet survey was based on tweets by 8,365 users between June 29 and July 6, followed by an opinion-based analysis on a sample size of 520 users based in KL, Selangor and Penang.
Details of the race and gender of the users sampled for the analysis were determined through individual vetting of online profiles. The users sampled are estimated to be between the ages of 18 and 30 years old.
Lim was charged with abuse of power and corruption at the Penang High Court last month over the alleged approval of a rezoning application by Magnificent Emblem to convert agricultural land to residential and over his purchase of his RM2.8 million house from businesswoman Phang Li Koon at below market value of RM4.27 million.
He is facing a jail term of not more than 20 years and a fine of five times the value of gratification or RM10,000, whichever is higher, if convicted for the first charge and up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine and forfeiture of property upon conviction for the second charge.
