A recent poll has revealed that BN has the highest support among voters in Sungai Besar, where a by-election will be held on June 18.

According to UCSI Poll Research Centre, if the election is held at the present moment, up to 44.75 percent of respondents would support the BN candidate.

In second place is PKR, with 24.25 percent of the support, followed by PAS with 13 percent and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah), 8.25 percent - a total of 45.5 percent for the three parties combined.

The survey suggested that 90.25 percent of the voters have decided on which party they would cast their ballots for, while only 9.75 percent remained undecided.

The poll was carried out between May 24 and 29. It involved 400 respondents, comprising 230 Malay voters, 155 Chinese and 15 Indians.

The by-election, called following the death of its incumbent Noriah Kasnon in a helicopter crash in Sarawak, is set to witness a three-cornered tussle between BN, PAS and Amanah.

The UCSI poll also revealed the issues which were of concern to Malay and non-Malay voters.

Malay voters were most concerned about corruption (76 percent) and 1MDB (56 percent) compared to livelihood issues (50 percent). Other issues were the high crime rate (36 percent), national debt (30 percent) and education quality (27 percent).

As for non-Malay voters, corruption topped the list at 80 percent, trailed by livelihood issue (65 percent) and 1MDB (52 percent). These voters were also concerned about racial tension (43 percent). The other issues were the high crime rate (38 percent) and education quality (29 percent).

The respondents were also asked if they believed voters would continue to support PAS in the wake of what had transpired in the now defunct opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat.

More than half of the Malay voters or 51.3 percent believed they would, whereas 48.7 percent did not.

However, a whopping 87.1 percent of non-Malay voters believed that PAS would not receive support following the fallout, while 12.9 percent stated otherwise.

In the last general election, BN won the Parliament seat with a razor-thin majority of 399 votes against PAS.