KEDAH, Perak and Johor will fall to Pakatan Harapan (PH) while Selangor and Penang will be retained with a bigger majority in the 14th general election due to a Malay vote swing, think-tank Invoke predicted based on a survey.

Negri Sembilan and Malacca, however, will see hung state assemblies, Invoke director Rafizi Ramli said in a presentation of the survey in Kuala Lumpur tonight.

He said Barisan Nasional (BN) will win Terengganu and Kelantan with almost a clean sweep and will retain Pahang. 

The Pandan MP predicted that PH and Parti Warisan Sabah would win 120 seats in Parliament. However, the Invoke survey did not sample respondents in the Bornean states.

PAS, which currently forms the state government in Kelantan, will not win any federal seat.

A separate survey with more than 2,000 respondents, found that Malay support for BN in Peninsular Malaysia declined from 41% December last year to 28.5% last month.

Malay support for PH rose from 9.9% to 14.1% during the same period.

The number of undecided voters increased from 11.9% to 17%.

The number of voters who refused to answer who they will vote for remained at 22%.

The survey took a cumulative sample size of more than 200,000 respondents and digital sampling of over 300,000 online users in Peninsular Malaysia over a period of 18 months, Rafizi said.

Rafizi claimed the decline in Malay support of an average of 6% per month between December and February was last seen just prior to the 1999 general election, when PAS took control of two state governments.

“It indicates a Malay wave (of potential support for PH),” he said.

In Peninsular Malaysia, PH is expected to win 89 parliamentary seats vs BN’s 76.

The survey projected landslide victories for BN in Terengganu, Kelantan and Perlis while PH is projected to win 15 state seats in Pahang to BN’s 27.

“The PAS effect is beginning to matter here. In the east coast states, the PAS effect (on multi-corner fights) is huge,” Rafizi said.

Hung state assemblies may occur in Negeri Sembilan and Malacca.

PH is expected to retain Penang and Selangor. In Selangor, PH is projected to win 50 state seats vs BN’s six.

PH is projected to win Johor with a majority of two state seats, and Perak with a majority of 5 state seats.

Kedah is projected to be captured by PH with a majority of eight state seats.

Sabah and Sarawak were not polled by Invoke as collecting “data points” for the numerous ethnic native groups proved too difficult, Rafizi said.

“What we could get over this period is not statistically good enough. We don’t profile them and therefore we cannot call the result for Sabah and Sarawak.”

Rafizi added that about 35% Malay voters are “persuadable voters who will decide the result of the elections.”

Invoke’s data is analysed using logistic regression, which looks at the relationship between variables and outcomes, Rafizi said.

Survey questions were conducted by random robo-calls where multiple prepared questions were asked.

Further questions were posed depending on the strata group the respondent were found to belong to. Only about 9% of respondents answer the final question as to which party they would vote for. – March 9, 2018.