Can a digital platform harness big data and ‘big qual’ to make Malaysia’s political leaders more accountable?
An interview with Poorani Krishnan, a Frontier Tech Pioneer
When I ask her what the inspiration was behind her Frontier Technology pilot, Poorani Krishnan is unequivocal. “I think the one big challenge that separates where we are and where we can be is leadership,” she says.
It’s a view born out of her experiences as a young person living in Malaysia.
When I ask her how she would describe how Malaysian people feel about the political situation, Poorani only has one word for it. “Helpless. I think young people in many countries around the world feel helpless about their disconnect from the political process. But the situation is accepted because they feel like there's no real way to challenge or change it. Everyone is tired and a lot of engagement is only happening on social media. As individuals, we feel we that should be able to have some impact on what's happening, regardless of our background. But so many people feel like they can’t connect with politics and that the current methods of engagement don’t work for them.”
Democracy through data
As a Senior Science and Innovation Advisor at the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, Poorani has been able to support science policy development and build leadership in her chosen field, but her ambitions for this project go much further than that. With this pilot Poorani wants to make potential leaders more accountable.
“The most effective political systems are those that have talented, capable people in the right positions and who are there for the right reasons.” she says “If you do not have the right people in the right positions for the right reasons then this leads to a ripple effect that causes significant, deep-rooted problems in education, in science and in health. If you can solve the problem at the top level problem by creating good leadership, then it translates to effective policies and then good things happen elsewhere. My idea for this pilot is to create the evidence for that.”
The core challenge Krishnan is hoping to solve is, on the face of it, very simple: How does a voter get the information they need to make an informed decision? But it’s a challenge rooted in complex and deep-rooted social psychological factors. “We get some basic information about the people that we are asked to vote for, but at the end of the day, we can't reason much.” Poorani says. “You can't compare, but we are trained to vote that way.”
Poorani compares the situation to the corporate sector, where, “your superiors can see how well you do and then they will suggest how you can perform better,” and argues that without a similar political mechanism there is little accountability, and this creates an environment in which corruption can thrive.
“I hope that this project creates sufficient, organised data that people can access,” Poorani tells me, “so they can find out about political candidates and also hold them to account. The two main things we want to test are big data and big qual. With big data you have the numbers, but with ‘biq qual’ you also see things like impressions and opinions, and then a comparison platform that will allow voters to find out the information they need.”
Creating political engagement beyond the campaign trail
Poorani is currently designing the platform’s structure and capabilities before she can begin testing it at a federal level, but she is adamant that it should create and reward engagement, not just from voters but those looking to win their votes.
“Both political candidates and voters have to be engaged,” she insists. “Politicians will have to enter the kind of information that voters need to make an informed decisions, such as manifesto promises and their individual aspirations. That would be the major data source to compare, so voters can understand what the priorities are of the person they’re voting for.”
Krishnan is also keen to ensure that this tool is able to serve a purpose far beyond the campaign trail. “If that person wins a seat, the platform will still be there and that candidate's page is turned into a performance indicator,” she explains. “This is the most exciting part for me, because once a candidate wins a seat, you hardly have any interactions with them. That is not democracy, but it’s what happens in a lot of developing countries. This idea would try to break that, so you would have continuous engagement with politicians and they would have the responsibility of giving feedback to the people who gave them the opportunity to lead.”
Better information, more transparent, greater diversity
By creating a platform that encourages engagement and which rewards transparency and answerability, Poorani is hoping to have a much larger impact on the political landscape both across Malaysia and beyond.
“There are three major outcomes that I would wish to see coming out of this,” she says. “The first is to create a culture of looking for credible information. When we say ‘information’ our mind too often goes to social media, but we need something specific, where you're able to compare and you're able to reason well. I want to see people seek as much data as possible in order to decide who they should cast their vote for.
“Physical election campaigns in poorer communities are the most vulnerable to misinformation and other threats to a fair democratic process, because in those communities people tend to be less interested in who becomes the leader tomorrow and more interested in what needs are being satisfied right now. That’s fair, because these people need results, but it also means that need can be exploited. If this digital platform is able to create more transparent, balanced and relevant digital campaigns, then it can hopefully tackle some of those issues. Not entirely of course, but we can test it out.”
Finally, Poorani wants to help bring diversity into the political sphere by creating a space that focuses on the values of the individual over the party system. “We see a lot of highly capable individuals refrain from politics, simply because there's a party based system,” she argues. “To get to the top takes all your energy, and I've seen people become very different from what they used to be. All the enthusiasm wears off and their value system changes.
“This platform would give a focus on individuals rather than a party,” she says, “and that would mean we will eventually get more dedicated, capable people. In the long run, that mindset shift will create a better space and better opportunities for women and those from marginalised communities to take part in politics. I think that's what we need.”
If you’d like to dig in further…
🎧 Listen to the Data Frontier to hear more about how data is being harnessed for international development and diplomacy (7 episode podcast)
🔮 Explore our Future of Elections learning journey (long read)
👀 Follow this pilot’s journey on their pilot profile page (regularly updated)