Status quo in support for Harapan, PN in KKB - except among cops, troops

 

Polling in Kuala Kubu Baharu today showed that support for both Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional remained at the status quo in the seat.

One notable exception, however, was the preferences of police and military voters.

On paper, Harapan’s performance in Kuala Kubu Baharu improved slightly today compared to last year.

The coalition bagged 57.2 percent of votes, compared to 54.4 percent previously.

Meanwhile, PN’s vote share also seemed to improve from 39.3 percent to 41.4 percent.

However, these improvements appear skewed by the performance of the alternative candidates, both of whom did worse this time around.

In the 2023 state election, Muda and PRM bagged 4.3 percent and 1.9 percent of the votes respectively.

However, in today’s polling PRM only secured 0.6 percent of votes, while independent candidate Nyau Ke Xin received 0.8 percent of votes.

When the alternative candidates in 2023 and today’s election are removed from the equation, it shows that support for both Harapan and PN are both unchanged at 58 percent and 42 percent respectively.

Shift in uniformed support

The outcome was noticeably different, however, among uniformed voters.

In 2023, police voters cast 388 ballots for PN (76.5 percent) and just 119 for Harapan (23.47 percent).

However, this flipped completely today, with the voters in blue voting 249 for Harapan (84.1 percent) and 47 for PN (15.8 percent).

Meanwhile, there was also a shift in military support for Harapan from just 27 votes (16 percent) in 2023 to 84 votes (54.2 percent).

PN’s military support dropped from 142 votes (84 percent) in 2023 to 71 votes (45.8 percent)

Speaking to Malaysiakini, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the shift in uniformed votes was the result of the government’s efforts to guard the well-being of security forces being better understood and accepted.

It also comes in the wake of the government’s pledge to raise civil servants salaries by more than 13 percent this year.

Did Harapan gain Malay support?

Meanwhile, initial information from sources indicated that Malay voter turnout may have dropped by about eight percent to around 59 percent.

However, despite this dip, there was no marked change in overall support for PN, suggesting that the opposition had mostly retained their core supporters.

This also suggests that Harapan did not make any significant gains among Malay voters either.

One possible outcome is that Malay support for Harapan may have dipped slightly, but that the difference was made up by increased support from non-Malays and uniformed voters who voted for PN or alternative candidates previously. - Mkini