KUALA LUMPUR: The three-cornered fights in the coming 14th General Election (GE14) will give an advantage to Barisan Nasional (BN), a survey by social media research firm Politweet.org predicts.
In the report titled “Election forecast for Pakatan Harapan (PH) in Peninsular Malaysia”, it is stated that Pas will take away the anti-BN votes from the opposition pact in three-cornered fights between BN, Pas and PH.
This, the report said, is because most opposition-leaning voters will be split between PH and Pas since the Islamic party won many rural, Malay-majority seats in GE13 when it was part of the now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat.
“Three-cornered fights between PH, Pas and BN would most likely benefit BN.
“The impact of Pas contesting against PH in three-cornered fights needs to be overcome by PH winning votes from pro-BN voters.
“Only then can PH make significant enough gains to win 115 to 117 seats,” the report stated.
The Politweet report also provided an overview of the electoral data and prediction for GE14 based on analysis of past elections, individual voting patterns and electoral simulations.
In its seat distribution analysis, Politweet found that Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) and Parti Amanah Negara (PAN) will be contesting mostly at Pas’s strongholds.
“PPBM and PAN are contesting difficult seats to win a straight fight. With Pas splitting the vote, there will be few seats won by PPBM and PAN.”
The report also predicted that 39 per cent of voters in the peninsula are leaning towards BN, a one per cent increase in support from GE13. According to the report, this is due to the high amount of new Malay voters in GE13 BN-strongholds.
On new voters in the peninsula, the report showed 45 per cent leaning towards BN, 44 per cent towards PH and 11 per cent are fence-sitters.
The report also said that PH will need to win additional 10 or more seats in Sabah and Sarawak, while noting that it would be difficult for the opposition pact to do so, following their poor performance in the 2016 Sarawak state elections.
“PH still needs to win seats in East Malaysia to form a stable government even if they reduce the impact of votes going to Pas,” it added.