With two days left to polling day for the Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar by-elections, PAS said it sees hope in capturing both parliamentary seats.

PAS research centre director Dr Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki said this is due to high voter discontent, particularly among the Malay community.

"The challenge for the PAS machinery in these last two days is to guide voters into translating their discontent into protest votes," he said in a statement today.

Zuhdi said a PAS survey conducted in Kuala Kangsar verified this.

He said the survey found 59 percent of respondents were unhappy with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and only 22.3 percent agreed with the policy.

Furthermore, Zuhdi (photo) said 83.5 percent of respondents in Kuala Kangsar were also dissatisfied at the government's measures in trying to address the rising cost of living.

He added that the survey also found Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's popularity to be at a low 44.2 percent in the royal town and, interestingly, was even lower among Malay respondents at 38.7 percent.

Zuhdi said Sungai Besar expressed similar sentiments, as reflected in Institut Darul Ehsan's survey, which was released yesterday.

The survey found 47.4 percent of respondents in Sungai Besar were unhappy with Najib while 44.7 percent didn't think BR1M was helpful in reducing the cost of living.

However, Zuhdi said PAS' own survey in Sungai Besar showed BN still had a slim lead due to Chinese voters swinging back to BN.

"Based on these research findings, the PAS research centre is confident that PAS has hope in winning the Kuala Kangar and Sungai Besar elections due to the high dissatisfaction towards the government, particularly among the Malays.

"The PAS machinery needs to work in these final two days to create a wave of protest (vote)," he said.

PAS, BN and Parti Amanah Negara are contesting in both by-elections while the Kuala Kangsar contest is seeing an additional independent candidate.