Pakatan Rakyat (PR) could lose Kedah in Election 2013 with a mere six per cent swing in votes from the Malay and Chinese communities, a private survey by the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research has found.
A Kedah PAS leader told The Malaysian Insider that a possible reason for the drop in Chinese support was Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Razak’s ailing health, which he said had added to the perception of instability in the state government.
The leader also noted that Malay support for opposition parties PAS, PKR and the DAP during the 2008 general election had not been very strong to begin with, owing to the parties’ slim victory in the country’s rice-bowl state during the tumultuous polls.
“For example, in the Tanjung Dawai state seat, we won by barely a hundred votes,” the PAS leader said on condition of anonymity.
He added that the trend of votes from the Chinese community in supporting Barisan Nasional (BN) candidates at state-level but backing PR at federal level appeared to suggest a serious lack of confidence in the Kedah PR leadership.
Merdeka Center director Ibrahim Suffian underlined three likely factors behind the loss of support for the Kedah PR government, including the RM500 cash handouts under the Najib administration’s Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia (BR1M) programme.
“Secondly, there may be internal issues within the state government, such as its service delivery and thirdly, the new crop of candidates that Datuk Seri Najib Razak has proposed have begun to draw voters back into BN’s fold,” he said when contacted by The Malaysian Insider.
The prime minister dissolved Parliament yesterday and several states followed suit while the Kedah MB said he would seek the state Ruler’s consent today. Elections are expected by the end of April.
In Election 2008, the loose coalition of PAS, PKR and the DAP soared to a surprise victory in Kedah when it trounced BN, sweeping 22 of the state’s 36-seat assembly.
But two PKR representatives — Bakar Arang’s Tan Wei Shu and Lunas’ Mohd Radzhi Salleh — subsequently quit to become BN-friendly independents, citing their growing disillusionment with their party leadership.
Their quit decision effectively narrowed the seat margin between BN and PR to a mere four.
In May 2010, rumours began circulating that the state’s PR-led government would lose its already tenuous control of the state assembly and even fall back into BN’s hands due to more defections from PKR assemblymen.
The PAS leadership has yet to officially indicate who will lead the party’s campaign in Kedah for Election 2013.
Politicians from the ruling BN and opposition PR will be fighting tooth and nail to wrest majority control over 222 parliamentary seats and 505 state seats in the coming polls, which analysts have said will a toss-up between both pacts.
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