SNA analysis on PKR during nomination day
On the 5th of April 2018, Registrar of Societies (RoS) deregistered Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) as a party for failing to furnish the minutes of meetings of its divisions and branches by the stipulated deadline. Subsequently, Pakatan Harapan politicians decided to use PKR logo as their common logo for the upcoming 2018 General Election. Then, nomination day for the election was set on April 28.
We can see that post-related “PKR” spiked tremendously on the nomination day. Therefore, we zoom in at the Twitter activity on April 28.
Based on the type of activity regarding PKR, retweet took the highest percentage at 72.7%. Following, tweet at (17.1%), reply (8.7%) and quoted (1.5%). On average, the ratio of likes and retweets for 1 post is to 1 like and 1518 retweets respectively.
The accounts that were frequently mentioned with PKR are Khairykj and Rafiziramli. Both are the official account for UMNO Khairy Jamaluddin and PKR Rafizi Ramli. Both of them were mentioned because of the controversy regarding the Rantau state seat.
On the nomination day itself, UMNO Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan won the seat uncontested after his supposed opponent PKR Dr Streram Sinnasamy failed to register within the given time frame. He was not given entry into the registration because he does not have the required entry pass. As a result, Rafizi questioned the issue, while Khairy was questioned because the state seat falls under his parliamentary seat, Rembau.
Accounts which have influence in the network are:
- Khairykj (UMNO Politician)
- Aryyz_Azuerieyi
- AppleMustache (Pro-Pakatan Harapan)
- Juliejuliajula (Pro-Barisan Nasional)
- UMonline (Pro-Barisan Nasional)
From the network, we can see that Barisan Nasional have more influencers mentioning “PKR” on April 28.
There are # GE14, # PRU14, #PKR, #JomUndi, #HidupRakyat, #MalaysiaMemilih, #BersamaBN and #HebatkanNegaraku. The cluster group that used “#PKR” are incline to support PKR, while the ones who used “#BersamaBN” and “#HebatkanNegaraku” are more prone to support Barisan Nasional.
Besides, BN is using the tagline “Hidup Rakyat”. Thus, BN politicians will use the hashtag “#hiduprakyat” along with their post. But, the words were neutral yet uplifting. Therefore, netizens used the hashtag to show their interest for PRU-14. So, netizens who used the hashtag are not necessarily in support of Barisan Nasional.
As a conclusion, netizens on Twitter were busy talking on Streram Sinnasamy ineligibility to contest issue when it comes to PKR on the nomination day. Khairy and Rafizi were the politicians who responded to the matter. But, Khairy was more influential than Rafizi because his post and replied have much more share when compared with the latter, given that all of his followers are generic.