The Malaysian Insight

BARISAN Nasional (BN) remains strong in the rural areas while Pakatan Harapan (PH) still dominates urban seats, although the latter’s grip on urban and non-Malay votes is showing signs of decline, pollster Ilham Centre said.

Chief researcher Prof Mohd Yusri Ibrahim said although BN had improved its share of Malay votes by just two percentage points to 61%, their Chinese and Indian votes rose drastically by 14% and 28% respectively.

PH, on the other hand, saw declines all around with its share of Malay votes dropping 16% while Chinese and Indian votes fell 19% and 33% respectively.

“One interesting point we found during the survey was when we interviewed Indian voters, the majority of them picked Umno and not MIC,” Yusri said in a forum yesterday.

“They seem to identify with Umno better than MIC. Their second choice was DAP.”

Ilham Centre had polled 1,391 voters in Johor during the elections last month and predicted a BN win of 35 seats one day before polling day. BN finished with 40 in the 56-seat Johor assembly.

Although BN had taken the lion’s share of the seats in Johor, it only won 42% of the popular vote compared with PH (29%) and Perikatan Nasional (23%).

Ilham’s findings confirmed the post-election analysis of seats won by ethnicity.

In the above 70% Malay seats, BN took 13 while PN won two. In the 50%-70% Malay seats, BN took 21 while PH and PN claimed one each. In the non-Malay majority seats, PH won 12 compared while BN secured six.

In the 2018 election, PH took all 15 non-Malay majority seats and 20 of the 50%-70% Malay seats, while BN and PAS won four and one respectively. In the 70% and above Malay seats, BN took 15 while PH won one.

“Unlike BN, which could mobilise its rural and more Malay voters, PH failed to convince the majority of their own urban and non-Malay voters to come out.

“Another reason for the drop in the Malay votes is due to PN’s emergence as a genuine contender with BN for the Malay vote,” Yusri said. – March 24, 2022.