Poll shows Umno's Malay support dwindling, no reason for Harapan to cheer

Polling outfit Invoke's latest poll shows that Malay support for Umno in the coming general election will decline, primarily due to opposition to the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

However, scrutiny of the results revealed that Pakatan Harapan faces an uphill task in garnering Malay support as well, despite being led by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In the event of a three-cornered fight, 41 percent of Malays would choose Umno (and BN) while 14 percent would support PAS, said the pollster founded by PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli.

Contacted later, Rafizi (photo) clarified that Harapan registered the lowest Malay support at 13 percent.

He explained that the remaining 32 percent were respondents who chose not to reveal which coalition or party they supported.

This means PAS has 14 percent of support, which is higher than Harapan.

According to the poll, which is carried out on a monthly basis, half of the 41 percent of Malays who supported Umno wanted the GST abolished.

“This means the... support for Umno can go down even further,” claimed Invoke in a statement.

PAS fares better than Harapan

Meanwhile, the pollster said support for PAS had declined to “almost half” of what it was during January's poll, which was 25 percent.

However, should it be a straight fight between Harapan and BN, 51 percent of respondents said they would support the former while only 28 percent expressed support for BN.

In marginal seats like Kulim-Bandar Baharu and Merbok in Kedah, as well as Johor Bahru in Johor, only one-third of the Malays polled supported the federal government.

However, a breakdown of support for PAS and Harapan was not stated.

Meanwhile, Invoke said non-Malay support for the opposition coalition seems to mirror pre-GE13 levels.

Chinese support surpassed 80 percent while Indian support was 40 percent.

Invoke deduced that its results point to Harapan winning “around 115” out of the 222 parliamentary seats, which would enable it to form the government.

Invoke performs its monthly tracking polls by contacting 5,000 respondents nationwide by telephone every first week of the month.

It also polls certain marginal seats.

Respondents are selected at random and are stratified to represent the Malaysian electorate.- Mkini