THE “Malay tsunami” could still happen, with the latest Merdeka Centre survey showing that Malay support for Pakatan Harapan is on the rise.

The latest poll by the independent pollster shows that Malay support for PH has climbed to nearly 28%, from 20% on April 9.

The findings are important because the opposition believes that it will be able to topple the ruling Barisan Nasional only if there is a “Malay tsunami” in the 14th general election.

Merdeka Centre director Ibrahim Suffian said PH’s gains can be attributed to the voter swing away from PAS.

He said Malay support for the Islamist party saw a drop from 27% to 20.9% in the same period.

However, he said, PH has made only minor inroads in trying to erode BN’s Malay support, reducing it from 53% to 51.2%.

Ibrahim said in terms of Malay support, PH is now only short of 6.2 points to gain the 100 parliamentary seats in the peninsula.

He said this is based on the assumption that PH’s Chinese and Indian support remains unchanged at 85% and 54%, respectively.

He said the survey also shows that PAS stands to lose almost all the seats it is contesting in the peninsula.

“It shows that in the west coast, outside of Kedah, PAS is actually quite weak, and the Malay vote is increasingly being cornered by PH and BN,” he said when presenting the IKMAS-Merdeka Centre series on GE14.

“It’s going to be a very close contest in this election. We think PH will retain Selangor and Penang. A lot of gains in the other states will be made at the expense of PAS, and I think PAS has over-extended itself.

“Our estimate for Kedah is, we think PAS will be wiped out,” he told the forum in Kuala Lumpur. – May 2, 2018.