MALAYSIAN politics has become polarised once again as indicated by Malay voters in Felda areas who are no longer willing to vote for non-Malay candidates more so when they are from DAP, Rafizi Ramli said today.

The support level for Barisan Nasional (BN) in six parliamentary seats with Felda settlements had increased, with most of the seats contested by non-Malay candidates from Pakatan Harapan, an Invoke study revealed. 

Rafizi heads the PKR-linked group.

He said the decline in support for non-Malay or even Malay candidates from DAP and PKR could be attributed to Pakatan Rakyat’s break-up. 

The six seats are Telok Intan (10.3% increase) Kulai (8.28%), Bentong (4.6%), Raub (3.02%), Segamat (2.96%), and Tanjong Malim (1.83%). 

“The pattern is very obvious that parliamentary seats, where the PH candidates are non-Malays especially from DAP, there is an extremely big swing towards BN.”

The swing, however, doesn’t mean we will win or lose but we need to be a lot more tactical in our campaigning to make sure we get the voters that support us to come out in large numbers,” Rafizi said.

However, the remaining 47 parliamentary seats polled, which were contested by Malay candidates from PH, saw support for BN in three-cornered fights declining. 

Padang Terap and Pekan saw the biggest spike in support for PH with 24.1% and 23.94% respectively.

Rafizi said the major factors for the increase were the Felda crisis which started to hit the headlines since late last year, other national scandals and the rising goods prices.

“The support level is based on the latest results of April 201… before the FGV problems. The decline of votes for BN is not due to one factor, it’s an accumulation of many factors but the biggest remains the bread and butter issue.

“And I know Najib (Razak) doesn’t like this but anything and everything that goes wrong in the country will be blamed on him. Sometimes it’s true and sometimes it’s not but this is the effect of a prime minister having a humongous scandal hanging over his head,” he said. – June 20, 2017.