THE government will face the same anger from voters it saw in Tg Piai if it goes through with its targeted petrol subsidy plan, said pollster Ilham Centre.

Ilham Centre, which surveyed voter sentiments in the Tg Piai by-election, said this was because the price of RON95, which was now capped at RM2.08 per litre, would be floated.

Although the subsidy will be paid to low-income folk in the form of monthly payments, the perception of rising petrol prices will be hard to counter, said the pollster’s research head Dr Mohd Yusri Ibrahim.

“PH has lost the perception war. People will not care what kind of mechanism is used because what they see is the petrol price going up,” Yusri told a forum discussing the Tanjung Piai by-election outcome.

Yusri said the extraordinary anger of voters will manifest again when PH implements its petrol subsidy scheme.

The government has set out in Budget 2020 the details of the targeted subsidy scheme which is scheduled to take effect next year on the peninsula.

Instead of paying subsidies at the pump to keep a cap on the price of RON95, the money will be channelled to eligible B40 and M40 households.

“The government is not in a stable position and there are issues that are making people angry with it. So when the issue about subsidies comes along, their popularity will drop even more,” Yusri.

“The anger at the government will go up and PH does not have a good enough mechanism to counter the negative perception (created by) the opposition.”

Anger at PH, especially from Chinese voters, in Tg Piai caused the ruling coalition to lose the parliamentary seat by more than 15,000 votes, one of the largest defeats ever experienced by a ruling coalition in a by-election. – November 22, 2019.