Headlines on 29 December 2010 - PKR duo routed in MTUC polls
The Malaysiakini headlines for a report on the MTUC polls was perhaps too sensational. The use of the term ‘routed’ implies that the losers in the election were overwhelmingly defeated.
The dictionary defines 'rout' (present tense of 'routed') as:
(a) a defeat attended with disorderly flight; dispersal of a defeated force in complete disorder: to put an army to rout.
(b) any overwhelming defeat: a rout of the home team by the state champions.
But the details in the news article show that the new president of MTUC, Mohd Khalid Atan won 225 votes in the MTUC election while the former president Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud received 213. In other words, the majority was only 12 votes in a total turnout of 438. Hardly a rout!
Khalid's running mate Abdul Halim Mansur beat Syed Shahir's running mate Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid in a three-corner fight for the secretary-general's post. The votes received by the 3 contestants were 188, 165 and 117 respectively, where the majority was only 23 in a total turnout of 470. It was certainly no landslide.
As Fred Tan, one of the readers commented: The majorities of the winning were hardly considered as routing. Please be more careful so as not to be misleading.
Another reader Victor Johan supported Fred Tan.
Maybe a better choice of words in the headlines would have been more appropriate.
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