KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Government’s approval rating has been on the decline, says PKR leader Rafizi Ramli.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but someone must bell the cat.
“The approval rating of the Federal Government since PH took over in May 2018 has been plunging, rather rapidly,” said the founder of data analytics firm Invoke, in his blog today.
He said this was reflective in Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s ratings that stood at 53 per cent in a survey conducted earlier this month, a 19 per cent dip from a similar survey some six months ago.
The figures according to the former Pandan MP were reflective of the decreasing popularity of the Pakatan Harapan government.
“There is a consistent 20 per cent drop across all races. Malays (from 66 per cent to 45 per cent), Chinese (from 87 per cent to 65 per cent) and Indians (from 84 per cent to 64 per cent).”
“In some states, the newly elected Menteri Besar, whom some of the sampled respondents could not name correctly, got a higher approval rating than the Prime Minister,” he added.
Rafizi further said that one of the justifications for the plunge had been Pakatan Harapan’s achievement of less than 30 per cent of the Malay votes during the 14th General Election.
“Proponents of this view suggested that to defend the PH administration, the Prime Minister must be given a free hand to do what is necessary to strengthen PH’s Malay votes.”
“This includes the efforts to bring in ex-UMNO MPs to shore up BERSATU’s number in Parliament. The Prime Minister seems to argue today that the ex-UMNO MPs will bring the rural Malay support with them. This is good for PH in the battle for Malay’s hearts and minds,” he added.
However Rafizi stressed that the pact still won the majority in Dewan Rakyat due to a sufficient swing in Malay votes in marginal seats.
“They voted for PH primarily due to our economic promises to make their life better, not because PH has somewhat convinced them that we are more ‘Malay’ than UMNO or PAS,” he added.
“We can never become more Malays than UMNO or more politically Islamic than PAS. Race and religion are UMNO’s and PAS’ strength; the economic platform is our platform. (And) true enough, the results of GE14 validated this,” he added.
He said Bersatu received the lowest votes despite the prominence given to it.
“(But), thankfully PH still managed to win enough parliamentary seats because there were enough Malay economic voters who were ready to give it a chance, which explains the rapidly plunging approval rating for the Federal Government.”