Survey: Barisan will continue to reign

PETALING JAYA: Barisan Nasional will prevail in the 14th General Election, the Merdeka Center has found in its latest survey.

This is despite a likely 7.9% swing in the polls caused by the Malay sentiment against the ruling coalition, said the opinion research firm.

Its programme director Ibrahim Suffian said Malays accounted for 62% of the voters in the country, scattered across 120 parliamentary constituencies.

He drew up scenarios based on how many seats each coalition or party hoped to win in GE14.

If Barisan hoped to maintain its status quo of 95 seats in Peninsular Malaysia, Merdeka Center estimated that it would require 47.5% of Malay support.

Ibrahim said that currently, Barisan had the support of 53% of the Malay vote.

“Right now, they have a 5.5% surplus (of Malay support) nationwide,” he said when presenting the survey findings at the seminar titled Malaysia Decides 2018: Continuity or Change? on Thursday night.

“Barisan still has the majority of the Malay vote, despite the drop in support in some states.”

If Pakatan Harapan achieved its goal of winning the election, Merdeka Center estimated that it would need to clinch 100 seats in the Peninsula.

“They need to attain 34% of support from Malay voters, assuming that the nonMalay support does not change.

“Right now, they have 20% of the Malay support. That is 14% short of the 34% target,” said Ibrahim.

If PAS wanted to be “kingmaker” should there be a hung parliament, Merdeka Center set its goal at 20 seats in the Peninsula.

“They are not counting on the nonMalay votes at all. They only get support from the Malay voters.

“We estimate that their support right now is 20% of the Malay voters and they need 39.5% to cross the line. That’s 12.5% short,” he said.

Ibrahim pointed out that despite the decline in overall support for Barisan in comparison to previous elections, the Opposition still fell short in garnering the votes they would need to win GE14.

“If the Opposition cannot get the support it needs, this could be fatal come election day,” he said.

He added that the split in Opposition votes may prompt some fence sitters to go back to voting for Barisan.

“Barisan will prevail despite a lower vote share,” he said.

The survey was conducted among 1,206 voters across all states of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak through telephone interviews between April 3 and 9.

Respondents were selected through random stratified sampling by ethnicity, age, gender and parliamentary constituency.