POLLSTER Ilham Centre today predicted Barisan Nasional will win the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat in the by-election tomorrow with the support of Malay and Orang Asli voters.

Ilham executive director Azlan Zainal also said the turnout of Chinese and Indian voters would be low, thereby reducing Pakatan Harapan’s chance of winning.

He said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s presence in the constituency today to campaign would add momentum for PH, especially from veteran Umno voters nostalgic for the prime minister’s previous tenure.

“If this momentum is sufficiently strong, Pakatan’s chances will increase a bit,” he said.

At the same time, the Najib Razak factor is helping BN candidate Ramli Mohd Nor win over voters, said Azlan, based on a survey conducted earlier this week.

Voters had welcomed the former prime minister on the campaign trail for BN, especially in Felda settlements and Orang Asli villages.

“They were happy to see him visiting their villages, and his criminal cases had no affect in these places.

“There is still a possibility of silent voters rejecting BN for continuing to stick with Najib, but this number is too small to leave any impact,” he added.

Azlan said Ilham Centre conducted face-to-face interviews with 402 respondents in Cameron Highlands from January 22 to yesterday.

It found that Ramli and PH’s M. Manogaran were more prominent compared with the other candidates –independents Sallehudin Ab Talib and Wong Seng Yee.

Ramli is most prominent among Malay voters in Jelai while Manogaran has the support of non-Malays in Tanah Rata, added Azlan.

Azlan said Ramli’s campaign was also boosted by PAS, which has its machinery working aggressively for him.

“This can be seen with PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang himself campaigning for BN.

“Local PAS supporters were happy to see their leaders hitting the ground.”

The survey also found that BN had managed to use Malay-Islam issues to convince Malay voters to reject the PH candidate.

“Pakatan’s defensive attitude and weakness in handling Malay-Islam issues were used by BN to get Malay voters to reject the ruling pact.

“This was BN’s main weapon in its campaign,” said Azlan.

Another factor used against PH was the drop in commodity prices, which affects smallholders in Felda Sg Koyan.

They believed PH had failed to help them as punishment for supporting BN in GE14, he said.

The survey also found that support among Orang Asli voters – 22% of voters here – were shifting from BN to PH, but not drastically enough to have any impact on the voting pattern.

For PH to win this by-election, its candidate would need to muster the support of 30% of Orang Asli voters, Azlan said.

The by-election tomorrow is being held after the election court in November annulled the GE14 results as the winning BN candidate – C. Sivarraajh – was found to be involved in money politics and vote buying. – January 25, 2019.