KUCHING, Sept 25: Society Empowerment and Economic Development of Sabah (SEEDS) claims that there is no clear winner for the Sabah state election as inclination of support to Perikatan Nasional (PN) and local-based party has increased.
SEEDS chairman Dr Arnold Puyok in a statement today said the findings of the SEEDS Sabah Electoral Project 2020 survey has indicated that there is a noticeable shift in political allegiance from Barisan Nasional (BN) to PN.
According to him, PN has benefited greatly from this state election (PRN) campaign in terms of political visibility even in far flung rural areas.
“Overall, BN has lost 10 per cent popular share of voter inclination and PN has gained 10 per cent. The implication of this is the decision of BN, PN and Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) to slug it out in 17 seats will heavily split the votes and give the advantage to their opponents,” he said.
Dr Arnold pointed out that based on the factoring margin of error, Warisan Plus and the third force contenders have not moved much in terms of popular share of voter inclination
In BN majority seats, he said, BN has lost 7 per cent of the popular share of voter inclination and PN has gained 10 per cent, which is obtained through the share of BN and also Warisan Plus.
“In BN marginal seats, BN losts its voter inclination share substantially by more than 10 per cent whereas PN gained 13 per cent.
“Local-based parties also gained almost 5 per cent share of voter inclination in these marginal seats. In Warisan marginal seats, BN losts its voter inclination share substantially by more than 20 per cent, whereas PN gained more than 10 per cent.
“However, Warisan Plus has managed to capture the largest share of the voter inclination by 15 per cent,” he added.
Dr Arnold also noted the top three issues which may influence the voters voting decision are infrastructural development, performance of state government and performance of federal government,
He said the issues of party hopping and the Philippines claim to Sabah were found to be less salient.
“PN was viewed more favourably compared to Warisan in terms of handling of the Covid-19 crisis. A total of 51 per cent of the respondents said they would vote for the party than the individual but among the youth, the individual was more preferred than the party.
“Overall, there is still no clear winner in sight. The second survey shows Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) comprising PN, BN and PBS leading, with Warisan Plus trailing behind.
“Compared to the first survey, the inclination of support to the local parties has increased to 15.9 per cent (from 7.8 percent),” he said.
Dr Arnold also emphasised that due to the imbalance among constituencies, a fair representation per parliament is not achievable, unlike the previous sweep, this sweep will avoid analysis on a per constituency bassis.
“This analysis is an exploration of voter trends and sentiments, it does not serve as any prediction of any sorts. The multidimensional analysis will narrow down the number of samples which would then reflect on the error margin.
“Our analysis takes this into account and specifically indicates the number of samples with its corresponding error margin for statistical interpretation,” he explained.
The survey was first conducted by SEEDS Sabah Electoral Project 2020 from August 24 until 30, involving 2,350 respondents, followed by the second survey which was conducted from September 18 until 24, 2020, involving 1,138 respondents, across Sabah’s 25 parliamentary constituencies. –DayakDaily.
