Research: Harapan can take Putrajaya in straight fight with BN

With just a five-point swing in support, Pakatan Harapan can form the next federal government with just the winnings in Peninsular Malaysia alone, according to social media research firm Politweet.Org.

However, the firm said a slim margin of three seats - 112 seats are the minimum required - would not be enough to establish a stable government.

Due to this, a stronger swing of support and victories in Sabah and Sarawak would be crucial for the coalition.

Harapan, Politweet said, would need to target an additional 10 or more seats in East Malaysia but this could be a tall order.

“Given the performance of the opposition in the Sarawak state elections in 2016 and the current state of the opposition in Sabah, we can expect Harapan to face difficulty in winning 10 seats,” it added.

Meanwhile, Politweet said three-cornered fights involving PAS would benefit BN and for Harapan to overcome this hurdle, its parties - particularly Bersatu - must win over the ruling coalition's supporters.

“If Harapan is able to do this in three-corner fights, then the results of Scenario Three (a five-point swing to Harapan) can be achieved. This will lead to record victories for Harapan in Kedah and Johor, as well as control of the federal government,” it said.

Another hurdle that Harapan faces is the ongoing redelineation exercise, which is not modelled in Politweet’s simulation.

It said that if the redelineation is completed by the time the election takes place, BN’s odds in winning 10 more seats would improve.

The situation is even bleaker for Harapan if voter sentiments remain as they were in the 13th general election.

In this scenario, Harapan would only win between 76 to 83 seats in Peninsular Malaysia, compared to BN’s winnings of between 82 to 89 seats.

For comparison, the Pakatan Rakyat opposition had won 80 seats in Peninsular Malaysia during the 13th general election, while BN won 86 seats.

In Sabah and Sarawak, Pakatan Rakyat had won only nine seats during the election, compared to BN’s 47 seats.

Politweet said its simulations are based on data on voter demographics and results of the 12th and 13th general election at the polling stream level. This allows it to estimate each voter’s level of support for BN and opposition parties based on factors such as age, race, gender, the constituency involved, and whether it is an urban, semi-urban, or rural constituency, among other factors.

Each voter’s probability of turning up to vote is also estimated with this method.

The firm then ran 300 simulations for each of three different scenarios: If voter sentiment remains the same as the 13th general election, if each voter has a two-percentage-point swing in the probability of voting for the opposition, and if each voter has a five-percentage-point swing in probability in voting for the opposition.

The odds of BN or Harapan winning each constituency is then tallied based on how many times each coalition won the seat out of the 300 simulations.

However, the simulations are based on several assumptions that may not be true for the 14th general election.

It assumes straight fights between BN and a united opposition, and that there is no redelineation.

It also assumes that voter sentiment is unchanged and the 14th general election would see the same turnout rates as the 13th general election’s national average, which is 84.84 percent.- Mkini