Najib dreams big, ratings plummet

The BN chairman is supremely confident of winning big tomorrow but the massive crowd of 100,000 people at a Pakatan rally in Penang do give a different picture

PETALING JAYA: While Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is aiming for Barisan Nasional (BN) to regain its two-third majority in parliament at the 13th general election, his ratings has dipped to a low of 61% from 64% last month.

Yesterday, Najib who is also the BN chief, told several media editors that the ruling coalition for the last 55-years was confident of obtaining 148 seats of the available 222 parliament seat, effectively ensuring that the BN obtained its long held two-third majority which it had lost at the last election.

In the 2008 general election, the BN also lost four states — Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor — to add to Kelantan, which was already in the hands of the opposition. However Najib regained Perak through a reverse takeover a year later.

Although Najib is confident of securing a major victory, the opposition pact made up of PKR, PAS and DAP are also saying that they would emerge victorious in this polls.

The pact dubbed as Pakatan Rakyat has a reason to make such a confident remark judging from the support it had received at ceramahs in several parts of the country during the campaign period.

Yesterday Pakatan held several gatherings nationwide, including a mammoth rally at the Esplanade in Penang, which was attended by a massive 100,000 people.

This is the coalition’s biggest rally on the island where it managed to collect a record RM505,000 in donations from its supporters.

The rally also threw a damper on the BN ambition to takeover the Pearl of the Orient in this election.

The crowd and the mood at the Pakatan gathering was opposite to a gathering held by Umno in Seberang Jaya at about the same time yesterday where about 1,000 turned up to meet former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Similarly, only about 400 people were attracted to a free musical concert organised by the 1Malaysia Penang Welfare Club, aligned to Najib, at the Queensbay Mall.

However 10,000 people took part in a free dinner and mega-musical concert held by the 1Malaysia Club in honour of Najib in Rifle Range three days ago.

Drop in rating

Meanwhile the Merdeka Center survey released yesterday, revealed that Najib’s ratings had actually dipped to a low of 61% from 64% last month.

It also reported that BN and Pakatan were evenly tied to win the election, with 42% surveyed concurring that Pakatan should be given an opportunity to run the country, while 41% respondents feeling that only BN can govern the nation.

However, four percent of the voters refused to respond with 13% saying that they “did not know.”

“Based on the survey results and the assumption that the election is free and fair, we estimate that neither Barisan Nasional nor Pakatan Rakyat were in the lead as at 9.30pm on May 2, 2013,” Merdeka Center said in the statement issued yesterday evening.