PM's approval rating plunges two points

Just months before the 13th general election (GE13) is to take place, a survey found that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's popularity rating has dropped two points to 63 percent, from 65 percent last November.

"While satisfaction among Malay and Indian voters remained strong at 77 percent and 76 percent respectively, the sentiment among Chinese voters had dropped to 34 percent," pollster Merdeka Center said in a statement today.

This is according to a phone poll carried out by Merdeka Center in December last year, on a stratified random sampling of 1,018 registered voters comprising 59 percent Malay, 32 percent Chinese and 9 percent Indian respondents, selected based on ethnicity, gender and state of residence.

The survey also found that voters’ perception of the government remained lukewarm with 45 percent respondents happy with the government, while 47 percent of the respondents said that they were happy with the Barisan Nasional ruling coalition.

Merdeka Center polled the respondents between Dec 15 and 28, last year to gauge voters’ perceptions of current developments in the country.

The poll took place just after the Umno general assembly,interviews and statements by businessperson Deepak Jaikishan and former chief of police Musa Hassan, as well as controversies over ‘Amanat Haji Hadi’ and use of the word ‘Allah’ by the non-Muslim community.

[More to follow]