A newly-released survey suggests that slightly over a third of Malay voters believe Barisan Nasional will win the Hulu Selangor by-election.

azlan According to the survey of 261 Malay voters from Hulu Selangor by the Shah Alam based Ilham Centre, 37.2 percent of respondents believe BN candidate P Kamalanathan will win.

Though only 16.1 percent of the Malay voters believe that PKR candidate Zaid Ibrahim can win, the survey notes that 40.2 percent of the respondents were not sure who will win.

Due to the fact that a large number of respondents were still unsure, the Ilham Centre report suggests that Zaid still has a slim chance of winning.

In addition to this, Ilham Centre believes that the "good" performance of the Pakatan Rakyat state government at resolving local issues will influence the outcome.

"Up to 34.1 percent of the respondents believe that the new welfare policy introduced by the state government is very important to them and they want it to continue," read the summary of the report.

Among others, the survey cited the new (Tawas) and Senior Citizens Schemes as among the state government welfare efforts. 

However, Ilham Centre believes that being a victim of intense character assassination attempts ,Zaid faces a difficult campaign.

"Nevertheless, 50.6 percent or half of the respondents disagree with such a campaign - provocative personal attacks - and respondents believe that BN is getting desperate," read the report.

Rural vs semi-urban voters

According to the report, Pakatan Rakyat's support base appears to be centred more on urban areas and among younger voters.

"This is because they take time to evaluate and understand issues brought up by both contesting parties," said the report.

Interestingly, the survey results show that respondents uncertain of Sunday's results are from the Kuala Kubu Baru state constituency, the most developed of the three seats which make up the Hulu Selangor Parliament constituency.

Nearly 80 percent of respondents from Kuala Kubu Baru were unsure of the winner with 43.4 percent sharing that sentiment in the Batang Kali constituency.

Meanwhile, in the Malay-majority Hulu Bernama constituency, 68.7 percent of respondents believe that BN will win, with only 6.1 percent being unsure.

The results appear to dispel suggestions that Malay voters were likely to vote along racial rather than party lines. BN candidate P Kamalanathan is an ethnic Indian.

About 77.4 percent of the respondents said they were familiar with Zaid while Kamalanathan score was 72.4.

Local issues dominate

Meanwhile, 42.5 percent of respondents said local issues were important to them with only 23.4 percent concerned with national issues.

As expected, a whopping 86.6 percent of respondents hoped that the winner of the contest would help the welfare situation of the locals, while 61.3 percent wanted him to resolve land issues.

 A total of 55.2 percent of respondents believed that their MPs main task was to raise local issues in Parliament.

azlan In terms of national issues, 29.1 percent said they were influenced by the 1Malaysia concept while 25 percent of respondents would be influenced by issues over ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy).

Twenty percent of respondents said Pakatan Rakyat would be a factor in their votes while 11.5 percent admitted being swayed by BN's claims of PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim's ‘treachery'.

Only 3.1 percent of the respondents were concerned over the Apco Worldwide controversy, made an election issue by the opposition parties.