UM poll: Voters want Anwar as MB

A Universiti Malaya study shows the majority of Kajang voters are with Pakatan Rakyat.

UPDATED

PETALING JAYA:  The majority of Kajang voters polled in a Universiti Malaya survey are happy with the coming by-election, with 59% saying the polls are necessary to allow Anwar Ibrahim to become Selangor Menteri Besar.

In the survey that polled 576 voters in Kajang, UM found that 59% of voters welcomed the by-election, and 93% said it was not a waste of public funds.

Forty-two percent of voters also said the PKR-engineered by-election was necessary to solve the party’s internal politics, while only 20% disagreed.

Half the voters also agreed it was right to hold the by-election to save Pakatan Rakyat in Selangor – the main reason PKR has given for orchestrating the election.

The survey was done by Universiti Malaya Centre of Democracy and Election (Umcedel) on Feb 14 and 15.

“These results show that the message the mainstream media is sending out to us everyday — that the by-election is a waste of funds, that Anwar is not qualified to become menteri besar — contradicts the data we find,” said UMCEDED director Professor Dr Mohammad Redzuan Othman in a press conference.

In presenting the findings at the university here, Mohammad said it was as if the mainstream media wished to “force” voters to believe that the situation in Kajang was bleak for Anwar and Pakatan Rakyat.

Similarly, while the media has been focusing on PAS’s criticisms towards the by-election, only 21 percent of Kajang voters said they believed PAS was being uncooperative.

Mohammad said not only did the data they collect conflicted with mainstream media reports, the study also found that the majority of Kajang voters surveyed (25 percent) relied on the Internet for news.

“We found that internet penetration in Kajang is high. This means they are exposed to information and have alternative media,” said Mohammad.

“I think that is why you don’t find thousands flooding Anwar’s ceramahs — because they can access all the information through the Internet,” he added.

Meanwhile, the survey also found that the Allah issue, which BN has often used to attack Pakatan was ineffective in Kajang.

55 percent of Kajang voters surveyed said the kalimah Allah issue would not influence them to vote for BN, while 17 percent said it would.

Breaking down the results further, Mohammad said an overwhelming 60 percent of Malays surveyed in Kajang said the kalimah Allah issue would not drive them to vote for BN, as opposed to 21 percent of Malays saying they would.

“It’s clear that Malaysians generally don’t want this issue to be politicised,” he said.

BN was apparently dealt another blow when the survey results showed BR1M cash vouchers would not work on Kajang voters.

59 percent voters in the poll said the cash vouchers would not increase their support towards BN, while 33 percent said it would.

In contrast, the issues Pakatan and Anwar have been championing — the rising cost of living and government’s misuse of power – have resonated among the Kajang public.

69 percent said the price hikes would increase their support for Pakatan, as opposed to 21 percent who said they were unconcerned. The results, Mohammad noted, cut across race and religion.

Similarly, 65 percent of voters surveyed said government’s abuse of power was an issue that influenced them to vote for the opposition. Surprisingly, 70 percent of civil servants surveyed in Kajang said this issue was a major concern for them.

But Mohammad pointed out that no contender had been announced yet from BN’s side, and this would have had a bearing on the results of the data.

“The competition is not clear, so we intend to conduct another survey once nomination day is over,” he said.

“Our results also show that Anwar so far has only been campaigning in Pakatan strongholds in Kajang. So if MCA or Umno wishes to contest, there is still a chance they may win,” he added.

The results also revealed that issues Kajang voters were most concerned with were maintenance (67 percent), flooding (52 percent) and development (48 percent).

‘Results are trustworthy’
The total number of people sampled for this poll was only 1.47% of the total number of voters in Kajang, which is 39,728. Of this, those who supported Anwar as the MB was 0.86%.

However Mohammad defended the validity of his research, saying that the respondents were interviewed face to face through a random sampling method.

And while the sampling size may appear small, he pointed out it was more than sufficient for such a survey.

“This is also our 17th survey and we have interviewed a total of 25,5517 respondents for all our studies,” he said.

The survey took into account the race, sex, residential address and education of the voters. It was funded completely by the university, according to Mohammad.

The seat in Kajang fell vacant following the resignation of incumbent assemblymen Lee Chin Cheh of PKR on Jan 27. The Election Commission has set March 11 for nomination and March 23 for polling.

The Kajang state seat comprises 39,728 registered voters. It has 48% Malay voters, Chinese 41%, Indian 10% and others 1%.

At the last general election in May, 2013, there was a voter turnout of 87.9% with 541 spoilt votes.

PKR’s Lee garnered 19,571 votes followed by Lee Ban Seng (BN-MCA) with 12,747 votes and Mohamad Ismail (Berjasa) 1,014 votes.

The three independent candidates who contested were Mohd Iwan Jefrey Abdul Majib (249 votes), Ong Yan Foo (85 votes) and Mohd Khalid Kassim (83 votes).

Lee won with a comfortable 6, 824 vote majority. Except for the MCA candidate, all the others lost their deposits.

The by-election, however, will not have a bearing on who runs the state as Pakatan Rakyat has 44 seats in the 56-seat Selangor state assembly. The remainder 12 are held by the BN.