The Malaysian Insight

SAIFUL Bukhari Azlan will lose his deposit and fail to get more than 100 votes in the Port Dickson by-election, a survey by Institute Darul Ehsan (IDE) has found.

IDE chief executive officer Mohammad Redzuan Othman said out of 1,084 respondents, not a single person voted for Anwar Ibrahim’s former aide, who had claimed he was sodomised by PKR’s president designate. 

“We polled more than 1,000 people and they all said they would not vote for Saiful,” he said in a press conference today. 

The IDE did not elaborate on why the respondents did not favour Saiful. 

Redzuan said that not only would Saiful lose his deposit, but that he would only manage to garner about 100 votes.

“Out of 75,000 voters, maybe he will get 100 votes.”

The IDE had conducted two surveys – one before nomination day on September 29 and another on October 8 to 9 – that found that Anwar was the clear-cut favourite to win the Port Dickson by-election.

The surveys found that Anwar had the approval of 74% of the voter base, followed by PAS (11%) and former Negeri Sembilan menteri besar Isa Samad (10%). 

The rest of the three independents would likely finish with 1% of the votes each. The survey pegged fence sitters at 2%.

Saiful, meanwhile, was not included in the survey results as he polled 0%. 

All five state seats and 32 polling districts in Port Dickson were covered in the survey.

The survey did not account for some 40% of registered voters living outside Port Dickson.

The IDE also predicted that this election would buck the low voter turnout trend seen in recent by-elections as constituents appeared excited about the prospect of voting for a future prime minister as their MP.

The Port Dickson parliamentary seat has 75,212 registered voters, comprising Malays (43%), Chinese (33%) and Indians (22%).

Polling is on Saturday. – October 11, 2018.