Malaysian Polls: BN Could Lose Popular Vote Again While Maintaining Power

BenarNews staff
2018.05.02
Washington
180402-MY-vote-poll-620.jpg Supporters of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak cheer during a campaign event in Kuala Lumpur, May 1, 2018.
AFP

With days to go until voters in Malaysia get their chance to voice who they want to run the government, polls show Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional (BN) could maintain power while losing the popular vote to opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH).

PH is likely to pull in 43.7 percent of the popular vote when Malaysians cast their ballots in the 14th General Election on May 9, according to independent pollster Merdeka Center. Najib’s BN, on the other hand, is expected to pull in just 40.3 percent of the vote, but win more seats in parliament, giving it control of the government in Putrajaya.

BN benefited from a similar outcome five years ago.

“It is going to be a very close contest in the coming week,” Merdeka Center director Ibrahim Suffian announced in a forum livestreamed Wednesday on Facebook.

The center, which is polling daily leading up to the election, said support for PH among ethnic majority Malays has increased, but that growth has not come from BN voters switching allegiance.

Instead, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), an opposition party not aligned with the ruling or main opposition coalitions, has seen its support drop to 16 percent as of Tuesday from 17.2 percent in April, Reuters news agency reported.

Other polling organizations, including FT Confidential Research (FTCR), an independent research service of the Financial Times, issued similar observations about the election outcome in recent days.

Its polling in northern Malaysia showed that more than half of the respondents had a negative view of the economy.

Despite voters’ concerns, FTCR expects the ruling party’s redistricting earlier this year to help carry it across the finish line even as it looks to trail in the popular vote for the second straight general election.

In March, Najib introduced a bill that would redraw boundaries, saying said it would not produce any new seats but would change the names of some existing electoral districts. The map appears to benefit rural districts that most strongly support BN.

By contrast, it packed more voters in districts held by the opposition as seen in Petaling Jaya Utara seat in Selangor state, which was enlarged from 84,456 to 150,439 constituents.

“Today the parliament voted for a motion to protect Najib and BN, tomorrow it will vote to protect Najib from 1MDB with the fake news law. The choice is in the voter’s hand whether to allow for this to succeed,” senior opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said after the vote.

The government passed the fake news law, leading to a complaint being filed on Wednesday against former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, PH’s candidate to oust Najib. The complaint was filed over a comment Mahathir made last week that he was concerned his plane could have been sabotaged.

One poll, the Invoke Malaysia Center for Policy Initiatives, reported last week that Mahathir has a big lead over his former protégé Najib, according to the Asian Correspondent.

Invoke, which is aligned with the opposition, showed Mahathir had the support of 30 percent of those polled while Najib drew 24 percent. The PAS candidate, Abdul Hadi Awang, drew the support of 10.4 percent of those polled while the rest of the respondents chose other candidates.

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