KUCHING, Nov 5: A third-quarter 2020 (3Q20) poll has shown 43 percent out of 2,096 Malaysians believe that Perikatan Nasional (PN) is a viable government.
Emerging Markets Innovative Research (Emir Research) president and CEO Dr Rais Hussin said the ‘Pulse From The Ground’ quarterly poll for 3Q20 has found a smaller portion of 9 percent who find PN government to be nonviable.
He noted a statistically significant and substantial difference of 34 percent between these two extremes, as compared to the fourth quarter 2019 (4Q19) and first quarter 2020 (1Q20) polls that were more of a balance.
With this result, he drew a conclusion that the people’s confidence toward the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government might have wavered from 4Q19 to 1Q20.
“As the government in power then during 4Q19 and 1Q20 was PH, this reinforces the notion that rakyat’s confidence toward the former government might have been shaken from 4Q19 to 1Q20,” he said in a press statement today.
A similar trend was seen on the subject of discussion whether Malaysia is heading in the right direction, whereby 38 percent voted to agree and a mere 8 percent voted to disagree.
Dr Rais said this figure in 3Q20 is indeed an improvement compared to past surveys where only 26 percent attested to the country on the right track in 4Q19 and a reduced 20 percent in 1Q20, the periods when PH was the governance of Malaysia.
“This corroborates the findings of the FGD (Focus Group Discussion) that was held in July, consistently reiterated the same belief if the current government has not taken over power, we might be witnessing more severe problems by now.
“Many of the FGD discussants expressed the feeling the country is in better and more capable hands than before,” he explained.
On the economy, 31 percent of the people think the nation has a firm standing despite the economic downturn caused by the novel coronavirus, and it was 12 percent more in 3Q20 than that in 1Q20 when there was no Covid-19.-DayakDaily
