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Najib's Approval Rating Rises To 72 Per Cent - Merdeka Centre
09-June-2010, Bernama Online

KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's approval rating soared to 72 per cent, up from 69 per cent in April, according to a study conducted by an opinion research firm, Merdeka Centre.

The poll conducted from May 6 to 16 showed the highest approval rating among Indians (80 per cent) followed by Malays (77 per cent) and Chinese (58 per cent).

This is a marked increase since Merdeka Centre started a survey on Najib's popularity in March when he took over the reins of the administration. The approval rating then was merely 44 per cent.

According to Merdeka Centre, a sample size of 1,028 Malaysians were quizzed over the telephone for the survey and 47 per cent of them were unemployed.

Among issues which surfaced at the time of the survey were the fatal shooting of the 15-year-old Aminulrasyid Amzah, the ban on May 13 gathering initiated by Gertak and an announcement on a proposal to legalise sports betting.

The issues may have also influenced the Sibu parliamentary by-election result where Barisan Nasional lost by a slim majority.

The study also showed that 50 per cent of the respondents believed that Najib would be able to achieve his targets within two years on his initiatives, namely the 1Malaysia concept, the Government Transformation Plan (GTP) and the New Economic Model (NEM).

Once again, the Indians made up the highest number of respondents stating their confidence in Najib (65 per cent), followed by Malays (60 per cent) while Chinese made up only 30 per cent.

Questioned whether they thought the programmes introduced by Najib would encounter the problem of "good in planning, but weak in implementation", 58 per cent of the respondents felt this would be the case.

The study also found that 52 per cent of respondents agreed that the country was now heading in the right direction with 21 per cent giving the reason that the economy was recovering and quality of life of the people was improving.

However, 22 per cent of the respondents felt that the government should solve economic issues such as rising cost of living and prices of goods, unemployment and sugar shortages.

The survey also showed that the majority of Malaysians were still not satisfied with the government's efforts to combat crime and corruption, with 67 per cent and 57 per cent of respondents citing dissatisfaction in the two areas respectively.

However, 63 per cent of the respondents were satisfied with the quality of education in the country while 56 per cent were happy with the government's efforts to improve public transportation in urban areas like Kuala Lumpur.

Also asked in the survey was what they thought about the case of Aminulrasyid Amzah, 15, who was killed when police fired at a car they were pursuing in Shah Alam on April 26.

Ninety-one per cent of the respondents said they were dismayed by his death.

As to the police's response in the incident, only 25 per cent said they were satisfied as to how police handled it.

-- BERNAMA