THE stakes are stacked against Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the Rantau by-election as Umno’s Mohamad Hasan has things going his way, a study conducted by PH in the last two weeks revealed.

Apart from the large Umno support, voter sentiments against the PH government is also working in Mohamad’s favour, PH insiders said.

“There are more positives for him than us in this constituency,” said an insider who has been busy working the ground.

He said a study of the state seat showed that 79% of Rantau voters said they will pick Barisan Nasional (BN) on polling day. There are 22,096 voters in Rantau.

“We already know that Umno, for instance, has over 5,000 members in Rantau, making it 26% of the total electorate here,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

However, there is some good news for PH candidate Dr S. Streram (PKR) as almost half of those who had said they would back BN in the study are fence sitters, and as such can be converted to support Streram.

The source said after filtering out the hardcore voters through a series of additional questions about their perception of PH, 48% who said they will pick BN were fence sitters at best.

“So, while they have a big advantage going into this by-election, there’s still a lot to fight for,” the PH insider said.

He said the first to win 9,000 votes should bag the seat.

According to the Rembau federal seat data for GE14, PH barely scraped through in Rantau with 48.1% of the popular vote compared to BN’s 45.6% and PAS’ 4.5%. Rantau is one of four state seats under the Rembau federal constituency.

The by-election, which was triggered by an election petition, will pit acting Umno president Mohamad against Streram, and two independents, Malar Rajaram and Mohd Nor Yassin.

Ilham Centre director Mohd Azlan Zainal, meanwhile, said the stakes are much higher for Mohamad, the former Negri Sembilan menteri besar who is popularly known as Mat Hasan.

“Rantau is a must-win seat for Mat Hasan. Firstly, he is the three-term assemblyman here and he’s also the Umno deputy president.

“He needs to win this badly to boost the party morale and at 62 years old, it could be the end of his political career of he loses in his home seat.

“It’s also important for him to win this if he’s to continue as the acting Umno president,” said Azlan.

Voter sentiments in Rantau

The PH study also showed that cost of living (79%), PH’s manifesto promises (80%) and dissatisfaction with the federal government (79%) continue to top voters’ sentiments in Rantau.

The sentiments were squarely reflected among the three races.

Some 62% felt that the government was being dictated by DAP, which was threatening the position of Malays and Islam in the country – an agenda largely pushed by Umno to portray that the Chinese-majority DAP is dominating the ruling PH pact.

A total of 74% Malays felt that DAP was the problem while 43% of Chinese and 47% of Indians felt the same.

One thing that everyone seemed to agree on was that the BN-PAS cooperation can strengthen Malay unity – Malays (83%), Chinese (62%) and Indians (70%).

Some 38% of the voters surveyed also said they did not believe the corruption issues involving BN, adding they would vote for Mohamad in Rantau. – March 31, 2019.