Polls show that Malaysian youth think favourably of the state due to infrastructure development in the country, despite two-thirds of them expressing dissatisfaction with the BN government.
According to the National (Youth) Opinion Survey conducted by opinion research firm Merdeka Center, 75 percent of youth polled said they were satisfied with the government’s performance in developing infrastructure in the country while only 24 percent responded otherwise.
Such sentiment carried through across ages and between voters and non-voters but especially so among Malay youth, 82 percent of whom expressed satisfaction with the government's performance in this area.
Chinese youth, however, showed lower satisfaction rates (54 percent).
Most youth were also satisfied with the government’s efforts in maintaining ethnic peace in the country (63 percent) and in improving public safety (56 percent).
However, many youth were dissatisfied with how the government was creating jobs (56 percent) and most significantly, at reducing corruption (70 percent).
As a whole, two-thirds of all youth expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of the BN federal government.
High dissatisfaction rates were registered by respondents across races, urban and rural divides as well as between those registered to vote and those not registered.
The poll, conducted over the phone between Aug 3 to 8 this year, involved 604 respondents between the ages of 21 and 30 from 165 parliamentary constituencies in 11 states and one federal territory in Peninsular Malaysia.
Infrastructure as BN's trump card
Commenting on the results, Merdeka Center programme director Ibrahim Suffian observed that there was a deep sense of unhappiness among Malaysian youths towards the country's administration, except when it came to infrastructure development.
“As a whole, youth are less satisfied with the government and distrust both politics and politicians.
“But they like the infrastructure as it is something they can see happening around them,” he said at an ensuing panel discussion on the poll results at a hotel in Petaling Jaya last night.
image: https://i.malaysiakini.com/1156/3cc6b818b95dc8e9690164b55b22b2e4.jpeg
He elaborated that most youths believed the country was moving in the wrong direction. However, approximately a third of youths (32 percent) said otherwise, the reason being they could see rapid or good development happening in the country, such as the newly-completed Mass Rail Transit (MRT).
Observers have predicted that BN will use its track record in infrastructure development as its trump card in the upcoming 14th general election (GE14).
Communications Minister Salleh Said Keruak previously called the MRT Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s “gift for the people” after the latter launched the 31-station, RM21 billion Sungai Buloh-Kajang (SBK) MRT line back in July.
Najib also spoke of more projects to come including more MRT lines, additional Light Rail Transit (LRT) lines, the East Coast Railway Link (ECRL) and upgrades to KTM and Monorail lines.
Announced just last week, the government will be organising a month-long “Negaraku 2017” exhibition to showcase completed infrastructure projects as well as projects in the pipeline.- Mkini
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