2011-2015

The Malaysian Insider | 17-Apr-2015 – Nearly half of voters polled in a recent survey said they lacked confidence in the government’s handing of financial scandals involving Putrajaya’s strategic development fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd, while 33% said they were unsure.

Only 18% expressed confidence in the government’s ability to handle the issue, the survey by independent pollster Merdeka Center and business radio station BFM found.

Overall, the survey revealed that younger voters were more likely to report a lack of confidence in Putrajaya’s handling of the debt-ridden fund, compared with older voters. (see graphic below)

Those who reported having no confidence among younger voters were 57% compared with 40% among those 60 years old and above.

Meanwhile, nearly 70% of those polled – comprising mostly voters from the low income group – were unaware as to what the 1MDB controversy was all about.

The survey also revealed that 75% did not know what the role of 1MDB was supposed to be.

This figure was highest among Malay voters (at 81%), those without internet access (87%), those from households below RM3,000 a month (87%) and those who relied upon the mainstream media for their news (at 65%).

Asked who they felt was responsible for the 1MDB controversy, 52% of voters said they were unsure, while 6% said they did not know.

Of the remainder, 18% felt the prime minister was responsible, 16% said the federal government, while 5% named the 1MDB management.

The survey was conducted between March 12 and 27 this year and involved 1,011 registered voters. They comprised 60% Malays, 30% Chinese and 10% Indian in Peninsular Malaysia and were polled through telephone.

The survey found that lower income respondents were more likely to answer that they did not know when asked about the government’s handling of 1MDB, compared with those from higher income groups.

It showed that 50% among households earning less than RM1,500 per month reported uncertainty compared with 21% among those from households earning RM5,000 per month or higher.

The findings also revealed  that 33% felt they were personally affected by the scandal, with this group coming mainly from upper income households, ethnic Chinese voters, and those from the private sector and business owners.

However, 36% felt they were not affected, while 31% polled said they were uncertain.

“Malaysian political history is awash with past instances of alleged financial scandals over which a considerable amount of public funds were committed towards their rehabilitation.Merdeka Center’s programme director Ibrahim Suffian (pic) said the survey’s findings on the lack of awareness about 1MDB was due to the issue’s complex nature, as well as the lack of coverage in the mainstream media.

“Perhaps the country’s small tax base, which is less than 20%, means that the vast majority of citizens are not invested in the impact of the government’s pecuniary conduct. Hence, they did not follow the issue closely,” Ibrahim said in a statement on the survey results. – April 17, 2015.

astroawani.com | KUALA LUMPUR, 17-Apr-2015 : A vast majority of Malaysians are still clueless on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) issues, according to a Merdeka Center survey published Friday.

The survey jointly-conducted with business radio station, BFM Radio (89.9FM), a total of 70 per cent correspondents largely made up of  low-income earners – are still in the dark about the controversy while  the others said they did not know about the agency’s role.

To the question of who is responsible for the controversial 1MDB, 52 per cent said they are ‘not sure’, while six per cent answered they did not know.

The remaining 18 per cent viewed that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is responsible in overseeing the case while others agreed it (the case) should be placed under the purview of the Federal Government and 1MDB management.

The study also revealed that young voters are more prone to lodge reports on the lack of confidence in the government’s strategies in handling the 1MDB case compared to older voters.

Asked if they are affected by the 1MDB issue, a total of – 30 per cent respondents said they were not sure and 23 per cent were “not affected”.

The study was conducted between March 12 and 27 March and involved 1011 respondents aged between 21 and 50.

Sixty percent of the respondents were Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Chinese (31 per cent) and Indian (9 percent).

TODAYonline.com | KUALA LUMPUR, 17-Apr-2015 — Sixty-nine per cent of Malaysians are unaware of the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) controversy, and nearly half of them are not confident of the government’s handling of the matter, according to a poll by opinion research firm Merdeka Center and business radio channel BFM.

The poll result released yesterday showed that nearly three-quarters of Malaysians did not even know the role played by the state-owned strategic investment fund.

Despite that, 49 per cent of the respondents expressed their lack of confidence in the government’s handling of the 1MDB issue.

“In our opinion, the lack of awareness of the 1MDB issue stems from the relatively complex nature of the issue as well as the lack of coverage in the mainstream media,” said a press release which accompanied the poll result.

“Malaysian political history is awash with past instances of alleged financial scandals over which a considerable amount of public funds were committed towards their rehabilitation,” it added.

Merdeka Center said it found that those who lacked awareness of 1MDB were mostly low-income voters who had no internet access and who made up the majority of voters.

Malay voters were the least informed about 1MDB’s role, with 81 per cent of Malay respondents saying they were unaware.

One in three respondents — mostly people from the upper-income households, ethnic Chinese voters and those from the private sector and business owners — said they were affected by the 1MDB scandal.

The survey polled 1,011 registered voters between March 12 and 27 last month. The respondents comprised 60 per cent Malays, 30 per cent ethnic Chinese, and 10 per cent ethnic Indians.

Prime Minister Najib Razak last month ordered the Auditor-General and Public Accounts Committee to investigate 1MDB, amid growing demands for explanations over the firm’s allegedly opaque investment decisions and over its amassing a reported RM42 billion (S$15.6 billion) debt pile.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Abdul Wahid Omar said this week that the 1MDB’s failure to generate cash flow against its huge debts is a concern.

“Unless it can generate cash flow, it will not be sustainable,” he said.

The Malay Mail Online | KUALA LUMPUR, 04-April-2016 — Sarawak’s voters were overwhelmingly happy with the state government’s protection of religious freedom, a recent survey by independent pollster Merdeka Center showed.

A whopping 88 per cent of 815 respondents polled said they were happy with the Sarawak government’s protection of religious freedom, with this favourable sentiment shared by most of the Chinese, Muslim Bumiputera and non-Muslim Bumiputera respondents at 90 per cent, 91 per cent and 84 per cent.

Sarawak’s Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem had repeatedly made strong statements to assert the state’s protection of religious freedoms for its multiracial community, assuring Christians in March 2014 that he will never permit the introduction of any state laws to ban them from using the Arabic word for God, “Allah”.

Adenan had also said the Sarawak government will deny entry or deport those who attempt to incite racial and religious sentiments in the state, besides guaranteeing last April that his administration will protect the Sarawak’s people’s right to religious freedom.

In Merdeka Center’s January 2016 survey results released today, the majority of the respondents were as a whole satisfied with the Sarawak administration’s provision of basic amenities (66 per cent), provision of quality education in Sarawak (65 per cent) and protection of the environment (64 per cent).

Adenan’s administration was seen by respondents as performing well in providing for the poor’s welfare with 55 per cent expressing satisfaction, while 52 per cent were satisfied with its control of crime levels, management of the state’s economy and protection of the state’s autonomy stood at 52 per cent and 49 per cent respectively.

The voters polled were almost equally split in terms of satisfaction in rural infrastructure development with 48 per cent saying they were happy against 47 per cent, generation of economic growth with 47 per cent expressing favour against 46 per cent.

In four areas, those unhappy with the state government’s performance outweighed the proportion that felt satisfied.

Over half of the respondents were dissatisfied with the provision of reliable and quality public transport and the creation of job opportunities at 51 per cent and 53 per cent, while both areas of protection of native customary rights’ land and eradication of corruption in the public sector saw 46 per cent expressing dissatisfaction.

In an April 2015 survey by Merdeka Center of 606 Sarawakian voters, the overall top three issues which they felt needed the Sarawak government’s attention are fighting corruption (38 per cent), creating jobs (26 per cent) and improving public infrastructure in rural areas (25 per cent).

Merdeka Center said today that its self-funded survey was carried out on January 20 to January 26, 2016 through phone interviews of 815 voters reflecting the electoral profile of all 82 state seats in Sarawak.

It said the survey is eyed at measuring the voters’ perceptions of current developments in Sarawak ahead of the state’s elections, which must be held within 60 days of the state legislative assembly’s dissolution on April 11.

This year’s Sarawak election will be carried out with a budget of RM135 million and will see 1,141,294 registered voters being eligible to vote.

Malay Mail Online | KUALA LUMPUR, 16-Mar–2015 — The majority of Muslim voters across the peninsula think the Kelantan government should prioritise post-flood reconstruction instead of focusing on its proposal to implement hudud in the state, a survey has revealed.

The survey by independent pollster Merdeka Center found that 81 per cent of the Malay-Muslim respondents polled between January 21 and 30 this year shared the same view.

Merdeka Center said the findings indicated that the Kelantan PAS government’s hudud bid would not likely improve the party’s standing among the Kelantanese, or among the national Muslim electorate in general.

The pollster added that the findings were similar to its previous survey in April 2014, which had revealed that 58 per cent of Malays throughout the country felt they were not ready for hudud.

“This move recalls the party’s disastrous 2004 general election outing under the ‘Islamic State’ manifesto, which led to the fall of the PAS Terengganu state government and near loss in Kelantan,” Merdeka Center said in a press release today.

According to the survey, only 11 per cent of its Malay-Muslim respondents said Kelantan should prioritise its push for hudud, the controversial Islamic penal code that the state legislative assembly is expected to debate this Wednesday when the PAS-led government tables amendments to a state Islamic enactment.

Eight per cent said, however, that they were unsure.

Across all races, the survey also found that 84 per cent of Malaysian voters in the peninsula said Kelantan should focus on flood recovery efforts instead of on implementing the controversial Islamic penal code.

Only seven per cent said the state should proceed with its hudud implementation, while eight per cent said they were unsure and one per cent refused to respond.

IN THE GALLERY

Army personnel attend to a flood victim at a flood relief centre in Kelantan, December 26, 2014.
The survey polled a total of 1,008 registered voters here via telephone, including 60 per cent Malay, 30 per cent Chinese and 10 per cent Indian voters.

Respondents were selected on the basis of random stratified sampling along ethnicity, gender and state of residence. The interviews were carried out in the preferred language of the respondents.

The Kelantan PAS government reportedly plans to proceed with tabling amendments to the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II 1993 at the state legislative assembly this Wednesday, despite repeated objections from its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partners DAP and PKR.

Details of the proposed amendments, however, have not been made public nor did the PAS-led state administration share copies of the bill with their PR partners until last week.

When the draft was shared last Thursday, the PR presidential council told PAS to “reconsider” its amendments, with one DAP man telling the Islamist party that the proposed changes were entirely a new piece of legislation instead of minor updates to the Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II 1993 as previously claimed.

The DAP lawmaker, Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo also said DAP will continue to reject hudud as it was “impractical and against Pakatan’s common policy framework.”

Yesterday, however, Kelantan Deputy Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said the state will proceed with tabling the proposed changes this week and will not revise the draft as requested by the PR presidential council.

“Not going to go back to meet Pakatan again. We have discussed and it will be tabled,” he told Malay Mail Online.

– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/most-muslims-want-kelantan-to-focus-on-flood-recovery-not-hudud-survey-find#sthash.HB8ovtfv.dpuf

The Malaysian Insider | 16-Mar–2015 – A majority of voters in the peninsula said the PAS-led Kelantan government should focus on post-flood reconstruction, rather than its hudud law amendments.

Pollster Merdeka Center said in a statement today that its survey on 1,008 voters interviewed over the telephone showed that 84% think the state government should concentrate on repairing and rebuilding homes of flood victims.

This is also the prevalent view of 81% Malay/Muslim respondents interviewed across the peninsula.

“It should be noted that the survey found this view prevalent across key Malay/Muslim demographics of gender, age groups and media consumers.
“This finding is also in line with Merdeka Center’s previous finding in a survey carried out in April 2014, which revealed that a majority (58%) of Malay respondents thought that the country is not ready for hudud implementation,” it said.

Merdeka Center said the Kelantan government’s pursuit of the hudud enactment now also would not improve its standing among the people of the state as well as the national Muslim electorate.

“This move recalls the party’s disastrous 2004 general election outing under the ‘Islamic State’ manifesto, which led to the fall of the PAS Terengganu government and near loss in Kelantan.”

Kelantan was hit by its worst floods in decades in December, with tens of thousands of people displaced. While the state struggles with post-flood reconstruction, the administration has yet to put its hudud enactment amendment plan on the back burner.

The survey comes as the state government plans to table its Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II 1993 amendments on Wednesday at its state legislative assembly sitting, despite the Pakatan Rakyat presidential council urging the PAS administration to re-evaluate the proposed revision last week.

The survey echoes a report by The Malaysian Inisder over the weekend where more local Kelantan folk are calling for their leaders – and the rest of the country – to shift their focus from hudud to bread-and-butter issues.

The survey found 78% Malay men and 83% Malay women agreeing that rebuilding flood victims’ homes should be prioritised over hudud. Of those in favour of reconstruction, 79% were urban residents while 82% were rural residents.

In terms of how the different races responded to the questions in the survey, only 11% of Malays, 2% of Chinese and 1% of Indians approved of the hudud enactment.

Regardless of where they work, more than 80% of all respondents were in favour of rebuilding flood-ravaged Kelantan over imposing hudud law in the state.

The survey also found 85% of voters working for the government or government-linked companies, and the private sector respectively agreeing that the focus should be on rebuilding the state.

In the survey, only 7% of the respondents approved of the hudud enactment while 8% said they were unsure.

Only 1% of the voters interviewed refused to answer when asked if they thought the state should focus on rebuilding homes and if they approved of the hudud enactment.

The survey involved 60% Malay voters and 30% Chinese. The rest were Indian voters.

The respondents, who came from all 12 states across the peninsula, were randomly selected along the lines of gender, ethnicity, age and parliamentary constituency. – March 16, 2015.

– See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/focus-on-post-flood-works-not-hudud-voters-tell-kelantan-pas#sthash.YibRAv7z.dpuf

Malaysiakini.com | 27-Feb-2015 – Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s approval rating has dropped to 44 percent last month, the second lowest since he became prime minister six years ago.

His popularity slided one percentage point from 45 percent recorded in November and December last year. In October 2014, Najib’s approval rating was 48 percent.

Najib’s popularity plunged to its lowest in January last year when it registered 42 percent.

His highest approval rating was at 72 percent in May 2010.

According to Merdeka Centre, a poll carried out from Jan 21 to Jan 30 found that 46 percent of the respondents disapproved of the prime minister’s performance.

The survey also discovered that 47 percent of voters felt that the country was “headed in the wrong direction” compared to 39 percent who felt it was “headed in the right direction”.

The latest survey noted that 43 percent of the respondents, however, were either ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘angry’ with the performance of the government.

“We attribute this to public dissatisfaction as likely arising from pressure due to the rising cost of living, depressed commodity prices in rural areas as well as concerns on increased polarisation along communal and sectarian lines in the country”.Negative sentiments were largely driven by economic factors such as concerns over the high cost of living as well as the impact of the upcoming implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).

Public satisfaction same

Merdeka Centre further explained that other reasons driving negative perceptions about the country’s direction included perceived poor administration and continued racial polarisation in society.

“Those who felt the country was on a positive track based their views on the prevailing sense of peace and security, favourable economic conditions and infrastructure development and continued welfare assistance from the government”.

The Centre added public satisfaction with the government remained at the same level compared to the last survey released in October last year, whereby 38 percent reported that they were ‘happy’ with the government.

Although economic concerns remain the top issue among voters, with the latest being at 62 percent, this is lower compared to 71 percent in October 2014.

This was largely contributed by the drop in fuel prices and increased attention on the massive floods in East coast and other parts of Malaysia during December 2014.

A total of 1,008 registered voters comprising 60 percent Malay, 30 percent Chinese and 10 percent Indian were involved in the lates Merdeka Centre survey.

Respondents were interviewed by telephone. They were selected on the basis of random stratified sampling along ethnicity, gender and state of residence.

Malaysiakini.com | 27-Feb-2015 – As expected, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is far from being the toast of the Chinese community.

A survey by Merdeka Centre revealed that only 18 percent of those polled from the community are satisfied with his performance.

Whereas, only 13 percent believe that the country is headed in the right direction under his stewardship. Overall, 39 percent involving all ethnic groups say the country is headed in the right direction while 47 percent say it is going in the wrong direction.

As for the perception towards the government along ethnic lines, the survey found that only 11 percent of the Chinese respondents expressed “happiness”.

Out of the 1,008 polled, 30 percent of the respondents were Chinese,
60 percent were Malays, whereas the remaining 10 percent were Indians.

The percentages could have dipped further if the survey, which was conducted in January, had been carried out this month following Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s call on the Malays to boycott Chinese traders.

Since the 2008 general election, the Chinese have drawn the ire of Umno for throwing their lot behind the last general election.

Following the lack of action on Ismail, PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli claimed that the Chinese are now a community whose sentiments no longer have political value to Umno.

As for Najib’s support among the Malay community, it remains unchanged for four consecutive monthly surveys since October last year, at 58 percent.

On another note, the overall sentiment of the Malay community about the country’s direction improved, with 54 percent believing the country is on the right track, up five percent from last month.

This is also reflected in perception towards the government, with 52 percent of the Malay community saying they are happy, an improvement of two percent.

There is some good news for the premier though, as his support among the Indian community improved slightly from 39 percent to 44 percent.

Nonetheless, the community’s view of the government remains unchanged, with 34 percent expressing happiness with the government.

However, the Indian community’s view on whether the country was on the right direction fell to 26 percent compared to 29 percent.

The Malaysian Insider | 27-Feb–2015 – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s approval rating dropped to 44% in January from 48% in October 2014 as more people felt his government was headed in the wrong direction in economic matters, according to the latest Merdeka Center poll.

The independent pollster said Najib’s Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s approval rating remains at 38% in January, the same as the last poll done last October.

But on Najib himself, it found that 46% of people in its January 2015 survey disapproved of the prime minister’s handling of his job. (see graphics below)

Of those surveyed, 47% also felt that Malaysia was “headed in the wrong direction”, while 39% said it was on the right track.
The pollster said that those who felt positive about the country said so based on their sense of peace and security, economic conditions and the government’s provision of infrastructure and welfare assistance.

But broken down into perceived feelings, 38% of respondents said they were “dissatisfied” with the government’s performance, and 5% said they were “angry”.

Merdeka Centre noted that these sentiments were driven by concerns over higher living costs, the overall economic situation and worries over the impact of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which will be enforced in April.

It noted other reasons as well, including perceived poor administration and continued racial polarisation as factors which fueled negative perceptions towards the government.

The survey conducted between January 21 and January 30 among 1,008 registered voters also found that their topmost concern remained the economy.

Among those who said the country was going in the wrong direction, 19% cited inflation and higher living costs as a major reason while 15% cited generally unfavourable economic conditions.

Only 4% cited racial inequality, general political instability and the GST, respectively.

Overall, however, there was a drop in percentage of those who ranked the economy as their biggest worry, to 62% in January from 71% who said the same in October last year.

Merdeka Center said this drop could be due to lower fuel prices and increased attention on the massive floods in the east coast of the peninsula and other parts of the country in December last year.

By ethnicity, the voters surveyed comprised 60% Malay, 30% Chinese and 10% Indian. – February 27, 2015.