The independent pollster found that while most people rejected the video’s authenticity, purportedly featuring Anwar with a foreign prostitute, a significant number were unsure.
Adding to the bleak outcome, many of the 504 respondents surveyed also felt that the entire episode that first came to light on March 21 would affect their confidence in PR.
“A lot of grey areas with the public, denoting possibly uncertainty, some hesitation or simply the lack of information when talking about Anwar, given that most publicly available news about him tends to be one-sided and negative,” Merdeka Centre director Ibrahim Suffian said of the survey results.
The telephone survey between March 24 and 27 has an estimated margin of error at ± 4.40 per cent. A total of 504 respondents were selected via random stratified sampling method along the lines of state, ethnicity, gender and age.
According to the survey findings obtained by The Malaysian Insider, of the 504 respondents polled, 85 per cent were aware of the existence of the video while 15 per cent were not.
In total, 51 per cent did not believe that Anwar was the man in the 21-minute recording while a significant 29 per cent were unsure.
A total of 17 per cent believed in the video with three per cent saying they strongly believed that Anwar was the man in the recording.
When asked if the video would affect their confidence in PR, 48 per cent disagreed and 14 per cent said they were unsure.
Despite this however, a whopping 41 per cent agreed that the latest caper would tarnish their view of PR.
Corresponding to that, the respondents were also asked if they believed that the video would eventually lead to PR’s destruction.
While 45 per cent disagreed, 38 per cent predicted that it would while 16 per cent said they were unsure.
Anwar and his PR comrades has been on damage control-mode since the release of the controversial video, but many have predicted that this latest scandal would cause a chink in the pact’s armour.
Anwar has himself denied that he was the man, and called the emergence of the video recording a “scurrilous attack” against him, his family and PR.
But the video, coupled with Anwar’s ongoing Sodomy II trial and several revelations made by his arch-nemesis former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the latter’s latest book, could very well become the last straw for opposition supporters, who are said to have grown increasingly disillusioned with PR since Elections 2008.
In recent interviews with The Malaysian Insider, political analysts predicted that the video would likely complicate PR’s Sarawak campaign and hamper the pact’s efforts to arrest a slide in popularity.
They said that while the allegations remain unproven and the video’s source murky, the all but certain eventual leak of the recording onto the Internet will likely dent Anwar’s image.
It will also put into focus the opposition pact’s lack of a credible prime ministerial candidate.
“It might degrade Pakatan’s focus, if the leadership is not focused...it will affect the effectiveness of the coalition’s preparation for the upcoming state elections, instead of prepping on campaign issues, they will be made to address issues relating to his personal affairs,” Ibrahim had told The Malaysian Insider.
Anwar was sacked as Deputy Prime Minister in 1998 and charged and convicted of sodomy and corruption for abuse of power.
He spent six years in prison before the country’s top court overturned the conviction in 2004.
After his release, Anwar led his PKR, DAP and PAS to unprecedented gains in Election 2008, denying Barisan Nasional (BN) its traditional two-thirds parliamentary majority and cemented the three parties’ status as serious challengers for power with the formation of the PR pact.
But he was briefly arrested later the same year and charged again in court on another sodomy accusation involving a former male aide, a charge he has denied.
The charismatic leader is now on a nine-day tour of Sarawak ahead of state polls on April 16. - Malaysian Insider
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