SHAH ALAM, 17 Apr: Voters in Selangor are aware that although having lead the State Government for only five years, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) has proven that they are capable of governing the state better compared to 50 years under Umno.
Studies conducted by the University of Malaya Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMCEDEL) found that the support of voters in Selangor towards PR shows consistent improvement.
According to UMCEDEL Director, Professor Datuk Mohammad Redzuan Othman, this is a good achievement within a short term for the Selangor PR Government.
“They received a low rating (previously) because many of their promises had not been fulfilled, but now we have found there were up and downs but it eventually began to steadily increase.
“This is so because until the fourth year, the election drew near and voters actually compared the four years under PR with over 50 years under BN.
“At that time they just began to realise that whatever was done by PR was far better or received good results within a short period,” said Dr Mohammad Redzuan who is also the University of Malaya Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
According to him, the awareness of voters towards the Selangor PR Government’s success was also contributes by the condition of the society where more people are information savvy, altogether making it easy for the State Government to accurately convey information.
In addition, support from voters of the three major ethnic groups in Selangor was found to be in favour of PR compared to BN.
“Voters from the Chinese community are consistent, no problem. Voters from the Indian community lean more towards to PR compared to BN except in Ijok and Hulu Selangor, the estate areas where many still support BN.
“However (Indians from) the middle class or those who are in the Klang Valley and areas near (cities in) Selangor, clearly support PR.
“For the Malay community, it is also due to the aforementioned, they are not overly swayed by the media, causing Malay votes to still survive in terms of support towards PR,” he told TVSelangor.
According to the study conducted by UMCEDEL, voters expect Selangor PR to once again successfully form the State Government after the 13th General Elections (GE-13), increasing from 38 percent, from a study from 31 March to 15 April, to 50 percent, in a study from 1 to 16 September.
In the same study, voters who expect victory to go to Selangor BN has declined from 28 percent to 16 percent, a huge drop.
Meanwhile, both studies also showed that voters who answered ‘not sure’, remains unchanged at 34 percent.
The randomised study involved 1,536 respondents of all three major ethnic groups from the state.