Survey: PN has not won over Pelangai folk

 

PELANGAI BY-ELECTION | A survey of Pelangai voters has indicated that Perikatan Nasional will not win the majority in the by-election this Saturday.

The survey indicated that virtually all respondents have decided who they are voting for - 55.5 percent of respondents will vote for BN while 43.2 percent will vote for PN.

"Based on our findings, the narrative of 'change' brought by PN has not managed to penetrate the minds of Pelangai voters, although there is a slight swing towards PN," said Akademi Pengajian Melayu Universiti Malaya (APM), which conducted the survey.

During the 2022 Pahang legislative assembly election, the PN candidate polled 25.7 percent of the votes cast.

As for the 2022 parliamentary election, the PN candidate did better, polling 40.4 percent of the votes cast, based on granular election data which Malaysiakini purchased from the Election Commission.

Nay to Pahang putsch

When asked whether the BN-Pakatan Harapan administration in Pahang should be maintained, 58.6 percent of respondents agreed, while 27.9 percent were unsure. Only 13.5 percent disagreed.

The majority of respondents from three Felda settlements - Chemomoi, Sungai Kemasul and Sungai Kemahal - said they were satisfied with the state government, while a minority were not.

These three Felda settlements were where PN performed best during the 2022 general election and was expected to be key battlegrounds for the Pelangai polls.

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Similarly, the respondents were mostly (50.8 percent) favourable to the federal government fulfilling its current term.

The number of respondents who were satisfied with the federal government was not the majority in all three Felda settlements with a sizeable number (between 31.8 percent and 62.5 percent) responding that they were unsure.

Overall, 30 percent of respondents said they could not accept the BN-Harapan collaboration at the federal level.

"(Respondents found) PN's narrative about changing federal or state governments to be irrational and this might have led to respondents losing confidence in PN," said APM.

Wan Rosdy, incumbent popular

Meanwhile, Pahang Menteri Besar and Pahang BN chief Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail enjoyed extremely high popularity with 80.9 percent approval rate from the respondents.

As for incumbent Johari Harun, 93.1 percent of respondents said he had served the constituency well. Johari only served nine months as Pelangai assemblyperson before he died in an accident last August.

Conversely, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was not as popular among the respondents, with 60.2 percent voicing approval.

However, he received the majority approval of respondents from all three Felda settlements.

"Although it was once thought to be difficult to penetrate Felda areas, it seems that settlers are warming up to Anwar and the need to have a unity government," said APM.

Among the top four issues that deserved government attention, according to the respondents are cost of living woes, subsidies and government aid, infrastructure development and finally, job opportunities.

Notably, 22.7 percent of respondents are unemployed. The national unemployment level was 3.73 percent in 2022.

Studying the 'Green Wave'

APM conducted the survey between Sept 29 and Oct 2 involving 1,772 respondents and face-to-face interviews. It was financed internally.

Random stratified sampling was not applied and a disproportionately higher number of Malay voters were sampled.

Pelangai has 72 percent Malay voters, but 86.9 percent were sampled for this survey.

Survey leader Shahril Sabarudin told Malaysiakini that his team of 10 enumerators faced challenges in coming up with a representative sample because many non-Malay voters resided out of town and had high rejection rates.

"The survey questions were more relevant towards gauging support of Felda settlers and penetration of the 'Green Wave' which involves the Malays," he explained.

The survey focused on voter sentiment and not election result modelling. - Mkini