Merdeka Centre: Malay support for Pakatan growing at the expense of PAS

KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Harapan has gained an increase in Malay support in Peninsular Malaysia since Nomination Day, but this has come at the expense of PAS, according to the Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research.

The survey company said that the Malay voter support level for the Opposition coalition increased from 20% to 27.8% since nominations were filed on April 28.

Most of this support has come at the expense of Islamist party PAS, which has seen its support decrease from 27% to 20.9%.

Barisan Nasional has also seen a decrease of 1.8% in Malay support, although this is not expected to make much difference in GE14.

The Merdeka Centre first conducted a survey from April 9-16 among 1,200 participants from all over Peninsular Malaysia while the second survey was conducted among 850 people in 70 marginal seats.

“Assuming that non-Malay support for Pakatan remains unchanged, they still need to increase their Malay support to 34% if they are going to pose a strong challenge,” Merdeka Centre programme director Ibrahim Suffian said.

This threshold for Pakatan would mean winning 100 seats out of the 165 seats contested in Peninsular Malaysia, he added at a seminar titled “The Battleground States” organised by the Merdeka Centre and Ikmas in Wednesday.

If Barisan hopes to maintain the status quo, it would need to secure at least 95 seats in West Malaysia, according to Ibrahim.

“If the elections were held yesterday, Barisan would prevail,” he said, adding that Pakatan had made slow gains in Kedah and Johor.

Ibrahim had previously said that Malays account for 62% of voters in the country, scattered across 120 parliamentary seats.

He added that the non-Malay numbers had not really shifted, with Pakatan having about 85% of the Chinese vote while Barisan has 15%.

The Indian vote was split almost equally.

PAS' support from both the Indian and Chinese communities was negligible, he had said.