INDEED THE CHINESE ARE SMART: CHINESE DON’T WANT ANY OF UMNO’S SENIOR LEADERS TO GOVERN M’SIA & THAT INCLUDES NAJIB, ZAHID & KHAIRY – SURVEY

MORE than 63% of readers of a Chinese daily do not want any of the most senior Umno leaders in the Najib administration to lead the country, even as the ruling coalition prepares for the next general election.

Offered a choice of Prime Minister Najib Razak and Cabinet ministers Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Khairy Jamaluddin and Hishammuddin Hussein as “the best Barisan Nasional leader to lead the country, 63.61%  of respondents picked “None of the above”, in Oriental Daily’s poll of 15,000 readers.

On the other end of the political spectrum, jailed Pakatan Harapan leader Anwar Ibrahim garnered the most votes for the best prime minister candidate among opposition leaders.

Almost all of the poll’s respondents hope for a change of government in the 14th general election which is expected to be called before August 2018.

BN and PH are the two main political coalitions vying for federal power in GE14. Islamist party PAS is leading a pact of smaller parties called Gagasan Sejahtera Rakyat but they were not featured in the survey.

The poll was published in today’s edition of the Oriental Daily and featured three questions of best BN candidate for PM, best PH candidate for PM, and hoped-for results in GE14.

Hishammuddin, who is defence minister, garnered the most votes at 19.69% for best BN candidate for PM.

Youth and sports minister Khairy is the second most popular choice at 12.15%, followed by prime minister Najib at 3.8%. Less than 1% voted for his deputy, Zahid, who scored 0.74%.

About 63.6% of readers chose “None of the above”.

In PH, the top three choices for PM are Anwar at 38.98%, followed by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (19.74%) and PKR deputy president Mohd Azmin Ali (10.42%).

Bersatu chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad received 8.75% of votes, PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (6.26%) and Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin (1.5%). Only 14.36% ticked “None of the above”.

Many of the respondents also singled out PKR vice-presidents Rafizi Ramli and Nurul Izzah Anwar, who were not among the names listed in the poll, to be their choice of leader of Malaysia.

A 84.15% majority of readers hope for a change of government in the next general election, 6.47% are happy with the status quo, and 4.09% are rooting for BN to win with a two-thirds majority. A little over 5% have no opinion.

ANN