GE14 | Pakatan Harapan is seeing a large surge of Indian support in Kedah but its attempts to make inroads among Malay voters is progressing very slowly.
According to pollster Merdeka Centre, Indian support for Harapan surged from 32.5 percent as of April 2 to 55.7 percent as of April 26.
In contrast, BN's Indian support declined from 64.5 percent to 41.2 percent while PAS saw a negligible change at 3.1 percent in the same period.
In the last few weeks, Hindraf has organised several events relating to the Indian community in Kedah for Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Merdeka Centre also found that BN's Malay support had fallen to less than half.
According to the pollster, BN's Malay support in Kedah fell from 53.4 percent as of April 2 to 45.6 percent as of April 26.
The main beneficiary was PAS which saw its Malay support surge from 20.4 percent to 25.4 percent during the same period.
Malay support for Harapan in Kedah, meanwhile, only increased from 26.2 percent to 28.9 percent in the same period.
Merdeka Centre said Harapan is still short of 10 percent in Malay support to stand a chance of capturing the state.
However, it should be noted that the Kedah survey was prior to nomination day and the campaigning period for the 14th general election which began on April 28.
Hung state assembly?
A more recent Merdeka Centre survey for the whole of West Malaysia saw a 7.8 percent surge in Malay support for Harapan as of yesterday.
Even though the Kedah survey found PAS to be the main beneficiary of the Malay swing from BN, Merdeka Centre Ibrahim Suffian (above) said he believes PAS will suffer heavy losses in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia.
"We think in the west coast, PAS will be wiped out," he said, adding that PAS has almost no Chinese support and very small Indian support.
Ibrahim said this during the Ikmas-Merdeka Centre seminar series on the 14th general election themed the “The Battleground States” in Kuala Lumpur today.
His findings differed from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) researcher Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani's who believes PAS may be able to play the "kingmaker" role due to the possibility of a hung state assembly in Kedah.
Azizuddin predicted BN will win 16 out of 36 seats, followed by Pakatan Harapan (12) and PAS (8).
He, however, cautioned that the electoral sentiments are very dynamic and things could change with the campaign.
"There are so many marginal seats (in Kedah), so it can go either way," said Azizuddin. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.