Analysts say Najib can keep calm and carry on despite ratings dip

Political observers believe the recent Merdeka Center survey will not dramatically impact Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s career as prime minister and Umno chief. – The Malaysian Insider pic, October 31, 2014.

The Malaysian Insider | 31-Oct–2014 – Datuk Seri Najib Razak has nothing to worry about despite the plunge in approval ratings, analysts say, citing that the percentage is within expectations.

They said with the next general election still four years away, the Najib administration was taking the opportunity to bite the bullet and make difficult decisions.

This was reflected in the latest Merdeka Center survey, which found that the prime minister’s approval ratings had dropped to 48%.

The observers added the six-point slip from 54% last August would not affect Najib’s position as the head of Malaysia’s biggest party, Umno, which will hold its annual general assembly at the end of next month.

“This is not a worrying factor. This is expected because of the difficult decisions taken by the government and obviously people will react to it,” said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, the chief executive of think tank Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas).

“Any government in the world who embarks on difficult decisions within three years after their national polls will see their ratings dive and this is expected.”

Merdeka Center cited Malaysians’ dissatisfaction over fuel subsidy cuts as the reason for the prime minister’s popularity dip.

As part of its fuel rationalisation plan, Putrajaya slashed subsidies for fuel early October, which saw motorists paying 20 sen more for a litre of RON 95 petrol and diesel.

RON 95 now costs RM2.30 a litre, up from RM2.10, while diesel is at RM2.20, an increase from RM2 previously.

Professor James Chin of Monash University Malaysia concurred with Wan Saiful’s assessment and said Najib’s ratings had consistently hovered between 40 and 60% since he became prime minister in 2009.

“The numbers are not surprising, it has always revolved around that.”

Najib started as prime minister in April 2009 with a dismal 44% rating but it peaked at 72% in May 2010, bolstered by a sense that the nation was headed in the right direction.

But the rising cost of living, pessimism over the state of the country, and flaming racial-religious strife have seen his ratings steadily decline.

Khoo Kay Peng said despite the dismal ratings, Najib’s position as president of Malay party Umno was secure as internally there was no push to replace him.

“There is no crisis mode in Umno that calls for a change in leadership, unlike Badawi’s time.”

He was referring to Najib’s predecessor Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who stepped down after pressure from within the party due to the ruling Barisan Nasional’s dismal outing at the 2008 national polls, where they lost the customary two-thirds parliamentary majority.

“I don’t think in that sense, the poll result will have much bearing on Najib’s position,” said the independent political observer.

Dr Oh Ei Sun, an analyst from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, believed the low ratings would embolden the party’s right wing to make the usual supremacist remarks at its gathering next month.

“They will argue the low approval means his moderate stance is not gaining traction and he should revert to a more hard-line stand.” – October 31, 2014.

As Najib’s ratings drop, so does the judiciary’s, pollster finds

A picture of the Kuala Lumpur Federal Court in Putrajaya. The Merdeka Center revealed that 48% of its respondents did not feel confident about the country’s judicial system. – The Malaysian Insider pic, October 30, 2014.

The Malaysian Insider | 30-Oct–2014 – Nearly half of Malaysians polled displayed a lack of faith in the country’s judicial system, the Merdeka Center found.

The survey was done just before Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal in the Federal Court to overturn his sodomy conviction began.

Of the 1,005 respondents polled between October 11 and 26, 48% said they did not feel confident about the country’s judicial system.

Only 38% of the respondents said they felt positive towards the judiciary.

“It should be noted that these sentiments were more prevalent among younger voters where a majority of those under 40 years old reported lack of confidence in the judiciary,” independent pollster Merdeka Center said in a statement today.

Of the 1,005 respondents surveyed, 61% of them were Malays, 30% Chinese and 9% Indians.

The survey said Chinese respondents recorded the highest lack of confidence with the judiciary at a whopping 70%.

Malay respondents were the most positive towards the judiciary, with 48% of them expressing confidence as opposed to 36% who answered in the negative.

Among Indian respondents, 49% said they lacked confidence while 37% were positive towards the judiciary.

The survey also revealed a urban-rural and income divide, with most of those living in urban areas and earning household incomes of more than RM3,000 stating a lack of confidence in the judiciary.

Rural-based respondents, however, as well as those in the lower-income bracket, said the opposite.

Malaysia’s judicial system has been criticised as biased, especially against opposition politicians.

The 1998 and 2008 sodomy charges against Anwar, the opposition leader, have given fodder to government critics to support this claim.

Anwar is current appealing his conviction on the second charge at the Federal Court.

Critics also accused the Malaysian judiciary of bias in the use of draconian laws, such as the Internal Security Act, against opposition politicians. – October 30, 2014.

 

Najib Approval Rating Drops as Malaysian Costs Increase

Bloomberg Business Week | 30-Oct–2014 – Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s approval rating slipped as rising living costs prompted more voters to say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

The prime minister’s approval level dropped to 48 percent from 54 percent in August, according to a survey of 1,005 Malaysians conducted by the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research from Oct. 11 to Oct. 26. Economic concerns ranging from higher prices of fuel and homes to next year’s implementation of a consumption tax worry citizens the most, according to 71 percent of respondents, compared with 54 percent in August.

Najib’s efforts to narrow a budget deficit through subsidy cuts have left companies and consumers grappling with higher costs, and inflation next year is forecast to be the fastest since 2008. The proportion of people saying Malaysia is on the “wrong track” rose to 49 percent from 44 percent in August, while 41 percent said it is headed in the right direction.

“The negative sentiments were largely driven by concerns over cost-of-living increases, the general condition of the economy as well as worries over stoking of racial sentiments and public service delivery,” the Merdeka Center said in a statement yesterday.

The government raised fuel prices for the first time in more than a year on Oct. 2, following cuts in subsidies from sugar to electricity. Voter unhappiness is increasing even after Najib announced bigger cash handouts for the poor to help them cope with higher costs.

Concerns about the economy deepened even after it expanded at the fastest pace in six quarters in the three months through June. The government forecasts growth of as much as 6 percent this year and next.

Najib unveiled his 2015 annual budget on Oct. 10 where he announced wider exemptions of goods and services under a 6 percent tax that will start in April. The finance ministry forecasts inflation of 4 percent to 5 percent next year.

Public satisfaction with the government fell to 38 percent in the poll compared with 41 percent in August. Only 38 percent said they had confidence in the judicial system, compared with 48 percent who said they didn’t.

“These sentiments were more prevalent among younger voters where a majority of those under 40 years old reported lack of confidence in the judiciary,” the center said.

Najib’s rating fell to 42 percent in January in the months after the announcement of the goods and services tax and subsidy cuts. His approval level was at 45 percent when he came to power in 2009 and rose to as high as 72 percent by mid-2010.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shamim Adam in Kuala Lumpur at sadam2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net Amit Prakash, Dick Schumacher

Almost 60% of M’sians think country not ready for hudud

todayonline.com | KUALA LUMPUR, 17-Jul-2014 — While Malay Malaysians show high support for the hudud — or Islamic penal law — the majority of citizens feel the country is not ready to implement it, a survey by an independent pollster has found.

Only 25 per cent of those polled by Merdeka Center for Opinion Research believed Malaysia was ready to introduce the Islamic penal law, while 59 per cent said the country was not ready yet. Overall, 53 per cent of Malaysians support the hudud, including 71 per cent of Malay respondents and only 26 per cent of Chinese and Indian respondents.

“Among Malay respondents, the survey found high support for hudud and yet, at the same time, low level of readiness to see it implemented,” Merdeka Center said in a release yesterday.

“In our opinion, this possibly reflects their desire to conform to established norms about the primacy of the Syariah laws at a personal level but, at the same time, indicates hesitation to see it fully implemented publicly.”

The survey found the highest level of support for hudud among Malay voters under the age of 30, consistent with Merdeka Center’s findings in its 2011 study of Muslim youth sentiments, the pollster added.

Those with Internet access, earning more than RM5,000 (S$1,950) a month and working in the government sector are more likely to support the hudud, the survey found.

The issue of hudud has been controversial in Malaysia, most notably with the Islamist Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) pushing for its adoption in Kelantan — which it has governed since 1990 — pending amendments to the country’s laws to allow for it.

Last month, Selangor state assemblymen from the United Malays National Organisation — the leading member of the governing Barisan National coalition — also pushed for a study on the implementation of hudud in the state.

The issue has also raised the spectre of a split in the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition, with Democratic Action Party leaders last month warning that this could happen if PAS continues to push for the implementation of hudud, noting that it has never been part of PR’s common policy framework.

Merdeka Center’s survey also found that, overall, only 32 per cent believed hudud could be implemented fairly at the present time.
The Malay community was split on this issue, with 44 per cent saying the implementation would be fair, while 43 per cent said it would not.

Only 11 per cent of Chinese and 17 per cent of Indian respondents said it would be fair.

On what hudud was about, 56 per cent of Malaysians polled— of which 67 per cent were Malay, 38 per cent were Chinese and 51 per cent were Indian — said they understood the law.

Merdeka Center interviewed via telephone 1,009 voters aged 21 and above, from all states across Peninsular Malaysia. They had been randomly selected through stratified sampling, with respondents proportional to the population of parliamentary constituencies.

The survey was conducted from April 12 to April 21.

No survey will stop us from enforcing hudud, it’s God’s orders, says PAS

PAS will remain undeterred in their move to enforce hudud in Kelantan, despite the latest survey by an independent pollster showing Malaysians were not in favour of it, the party’s vice-president said today.

The Malay Mail Online | 17-Jul-2014 – “No matter how many surveys are conducted, hudud is still compulsory for Muslims.

“PAS wants to implement hudud not because of any surveys or research, but because it is God’s orders,” Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man (pic) told The Malaysian Insider.

He was responding to Merdeka Center’s survey results yesterday that showed 59% of Malaysians, and 58% of Malays, felt Malaysia was not ready to implement hudud.
The PAS leader said that the party may consider postponing hudud to educate the people first, but the survey would not derail their ultimate plan to enforce the law in Kelantan.

“However, the survey was carried out in all of Malaysia. That is not fair. It should have been done in Kelantan only because that is where we want to implement it.

“We have been trying to enforce hudud in Kelantan because that is where we received out mandate, and the Kelantanese understand that our objective is to carry out Allah’s orders.”

“When it comes to Muslims’ obligations, we can’t just carry out surveys asking them whether they agree with it or not. Something that is compulsory remains compulsory.He added that there were problems in carrying out surveys on issues compulsory to Muslims.

“I think if you want to conduct a survey, perhaps it should be on the public’s depth of understanding.”

Tuan Ibrahim also said the validity of the results were questionable as the respondents did not understand how hudud would be enforced.

“The problem is, we have never implemented hudud, so the people do not know really whether it will be good or not.”

Merdeka Center also revealed that about half of its respondents believed that hudud would be unfairly implemented.

But, Tuan Ibrahim said that hudud was a just system with stringent requirements. Cases that had even a tinge of doubt would be moved to the civil courts instead.

“If there is any injustice, it will not be in the laws itself, but its implementation. That is why Kelantan wants to set up a special court with special judges to oversee hudud cases.

He assured that the judges would be appointed independently, and that there were many requirements to be fulfilled before appointing one.“There will be a panel of judges for every case to avoid any bias, and there will be multiple courts to ensure fairness.”

The hudud debate came about after Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob revealed that the state intended to table a private member’s bill in Parliament so that it could implement it.

The bill would enable the Kelantan Shariah Penal Code II, which was passed in 1993 by the state assembly, to be enforced.

Ahmad’s announcement came following a statement by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom that Putrajaya would back the state’s move to implement hudud.

That created a rift between PAS and its Pakatan Rakyat allies, particularly the DAP.

DAP national organising secretary Anthony Loke even suggested that PAS leave the Pakatan coalition if it intends to implement hudud in Kelantan.

Deputy Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Mohamad Amar Nik Abdullah added fuel to the fire by saying that the state government did not need the blessings of PKR and DAP to implement it.

But following protests and criticism in May, PAS decided it would postpone the tabling of the bill to allow sufficient time for a joint Putrajaya and Kelantan government technical committee to study the implementation of the Kelantan Shariah Penal Code II.

Merdeka Center conducted the polls between April 12 and 21, 2014, involving 1,009 registered voters consisting of 60% Malay, 31% Chinese and 9% Indian respondents interviewed by telephone.

They were selected on the basis of a random stratified sampling along ethnicity, gender and state of residence. The interviews were carried out in the preferred language of the respondents. – July 16, 2014.

Not ready for hudud? Then get prepared, Kelantan deputy MB says

In Islamic jurisprudence, ‘hudud’ covers crimes such as theft, robbery, adultery, rape and sodomy. Punishments for the crimes are severe, including amputation, flogging and death by stoning. ― AFP pic

The Malay Mail Online | KUALA LUMPUR, 16-Jul-2014 ― The only way Malaysians will accept hudud is if Kelantan is allowed to implement its long-standing enactment, the state’s deputy mentri besar said, adding that the public would just have to get ready to comply with the divine law if they still felt unprepared.

“If you are not prepared, then preparations must be made,” Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said.

The Kelantan lawmaker who heads the state’s technical committee on hudud was responding to the Merdeka Center survey released today that showed that most Malaysians are not prepared for hudud.

Mohd Amar admitted, however, that more consultation and explanation is required before the state can go ahead with implementing hudud.

He told The Malay Mail Online that the public can gauge for themselves if the Islamic penal code is suitable for Malaysia once it is implemented in Kelantan.

In the survey released this afternoon, Independent pollster Merdeka Center found that 59 per cent of the Malaysians polled believe the country is not prepared to implement the controversial hudud, with 58 per cent of Malays believing so.

Just 25 per cent of respondents — and 30 per cent of Malays — believed that Malaysia is ready to introduce hudud now.

Over half the Malaysians polled also said they believe that hudud will not be implemented fairly with the judiciary and law enforcement currently in place. Only 32 per cent felt it would be implemented fairly.

Only 56 per cent of Malaysians polled said they understand the law, with only 14 per cent understanding it “a great deal”.

Those who did not understand it included 62 per cent of Chinese and 49 per cent of Indians polled.

The survey polled 1,009 voters in Peninsula Malaysia via telephone in their preferred language between April 12 and 21 this year.

Mohd Amar, however, pointed out that the survey failed to establish the components of hudud that they found to be unsuitable.

“There is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to hudud. Yes, the punishments are severe but without understanding the philosophy of it you cannot come to conclusions,” he said.

“It is not about chopping someones hands off just like that… the burden of proof is high,” added Mohd Amar.

Reiterating that the hudud is only to be applied in the east coast state, he insisted that “ the Kelantanese have no problems with it.

“Here, 95 per cent are Muslims… and they have been with us for the past 23 years,” said Mohd Amar.

In Islamic jurisprudence, “hudud” covers crimes such as theft, robbery, adultery, rape and sodomy. Punishments for the crimes are severe, including amputation, flogging and death by stoning.

The debate over hudud was rekindled in April when PAS made known its plan to enforce the Islamic criminal law in Kelantan, which it has governed since 1990.

But according to the Shariah Courts (Criminal) Jurisdiction Act 1965, the Islamic court cannot sentence offenders to more than three years in jail or fine them more than RM5,000. It also cannot sentence offenders to be whipped more than six times.

The news then led to baiting between the Islamist party and rival Umno over the controversial bid to amend the country’s laws to allow the introduction of hudud.

Last month, Selangor Umno assemblymen proposed a study on the feasibility of implementing hudud in the state, but withdrew it at the 11th hour.

Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) has allegedly proposed, in a working paper by its Shariah-Civil Technical Committee, that hudud to be rolled out nationwide in two stages.

But amid stern resistance, PAS said it will delay tabling two Parliamentary private members’ bills needed to pave the way for the enforcement of hudud in Kelantan, to allow a proposed bipartisan committee to study the implementation of the Islamic penal code.

The national-level committee on hudud is scheduled to host its inaugural meeting in Putrajaya tomorrow, said Mohd Amar.

– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/not-ready-for-hudud-then-get-prepared-kelantan-deputy-mb-says#sthash.PR998H2N.dpuf

 

Merdeka Center