POLITICAL analysts are not convinced by PKR’s expectation that multi-cornered contests will give the party an advantage to target fence-sitters in the next general election.

They said the expectation expressed by PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli is unrealistic, partly due to Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) performance during its 22-month rule in the country.

They also told The Malaysian Insight that the way the fence-sitters would swing is still unclear, not just for PKR but also for any party.

Ilham Centre executive director Hisomuddin Bakar said Rafizi had used the fence-sitters argument to win support in the PKR polls.

However, in reality, he said, fence-sitters have not shifted to support PKR.

“The voters of that segment are still immature in their voting patterns and most of them are not interested in participating, as seen in the Johor state elections,” he said.

“That is our sample group because there is no other election to measure the tendency of young voters, except in Johor.”

He said in Ilham’s report, it was found that young voters, who are categorised as fence-sitters, were not isolated from the majority of other groups.

“It means that if the majority has a certain pattern, it is quite impossible for young voters who sit in the community to think differently from the majority community pattern,” he said.

Hisomuddin said young voters may also be unsure of the opposition bloc or have lost interest, causing some of them not to vote.

“And if they do go out to vote, they may end up spoiling their vote. This is the segment targeted by Rafizi,” he said.

“I see that there is room for everyone to expect the new segment to benefit their respective party. So it is difficult for any party to attract new voters for now.”

Hisomuddin was commenting on Rafizi’s statement that PKR is not afraid to face multi-cornered contests in the 15th general election (GE15) and is now focusing on getting the support of fence-sitters, a term for voters who have not decided on who to vote for until voting time.

In a recent interview with The Malaysian Insight, the former Pandan MP said PKR can aim to get the support of fence-sitters and with that, it stands a good chance of capturing Putrajaya.

Rafizi referred to Invoke research body’s data for June, which showed that there were 62% of voters on the fence and PKR only needed to influence 30% to gain a majority.

But according to Hisomuddin, apart from this group of voters, there are two other segments that have not shown clear support for PKR – Malay and non-Malay voters.

He said non-Malay support for PKR is seen to be eroded when the party decided to contest using its own logo instead of PH’s in the Johor elections.

He said the action caused non-Malay voters to be disappointed at the disagreement and described it as immature.

In addition, PKR’s failure to maintain the support of Malay voters received through PH during 14th general election (GE14) will also disrupt its chances of victory.

“Through our findings, PH lost the Malay vote by around 13-15% in the Johor and Malacca state elections and the vote shifted to Perikatan Nasional,” he said.

Umno to benefit

Another analyst Mazlan Ali said although PKR’s claim on the ability to attract fence-sitters is well-founded, he is not convinced that it will reach up to 30%.

The Universiti Teknologi Malaysia analyst said success or failure actually depends on the PKR leader’s offer to voters, be it new or old voters.

“So on what factor is Rafizi saying he can win over the fence-sitters? What is his offer to this group?

“But the question is, what is the percentage of support; a question that is difficult for me to answer because the sentiment of voters or the direction of voters (fence-sitters) has not yet been proven.

“Even in the Johor elections, we did not see the exact support from this group,” he said.

Mazlan said it also covers former PH supporters who are now shying away from PKR.

“I thought these people used to be PH voters, but they are now fence-sitters. So Rafizi’s statement also includes his chase for this group of former supporters.

“It’s just that we see it’s quite difficult,” he said, adding that multi-cornered fights will only give an advantage to Barisan Nasional (BN) and Umno.

Mazlan said the clash would cause the PH vote to split where some of the PH vote would go to BN or Umno.

“That is what happened in the Malacca and Johor elections. It has been proven. So this split benefits Umno because it has a large traditional support vote,” he said.

Universiti Sains Malaysia analyst Ismail Tayeb agrees and thinks that the splitting of votes due to many Malay parties competing in GE15 will contribute to that scenario.

“Many Malay fence-sitters in GE14 have gone back to Umno,” he said.

“The support of non-Malay voters for PH and PKR is also not as strong as it used to be.”

He thinks the support for PH is declining because of disputes among the component parties.

“PH is also now seen to be more concerned with power than the interests of the people,” he said.

Therefore, Ismail said, PH needs to make changes to recharge the spirit of fence-sitters and win back the non-Malay voters who supported it previously.

However, he said, it might be too late for PH if GE15 is held this year. – August 8, 2022.