Facebook users in Johor have expressed higher interest for Umno and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak compared to the opposition or Dr Mahathir Mohamad, according to social media research firm Politweet.

Of the total 510,000 Facebook users monitored, Umno registered interest from 460,000 users, with over half of them (270,000) being men.

PKR and DAP registered about only a third of the interest Umno received at 180,000 and 160,000 users respectively.

As for PAS, the Islamist party attracted just 10 percent (46,000 users) of what Umno garnered.

Bersatu and Amanah were not included in the research.

“Facebook currently does not make statistics for Bersatu or Amanah available. This is usually an indicator that interest is too low,” said Politweet.

The results also showed that Facebook users in Johor were more interested in Najib than Pakatan Harapan chairperson Mahathir.

Compared to the 460,000 users interested in Najib, the former prime minister managed to attract just 180,000 users.

Female users seemed much more attracted to Najib (180,000) compared to Mahathir (57,000).

Opposition parties DAP, PKR and PAS also had less interest among female Facebook users compared to Umno.

“Out of the 460,000 users in Johor who are interested in Umno and PKR on its own can reach 30.4 percent. PKR and Mahathir combined can reach 45.7 percent. This still leaves 250,000 potential Johor voters on Facebook who are only interested in Umno.

“Another issue that should concern both BN and opposition parties is that only 25.45 percent of the total 2.2 million potential voters in Johor on Facebook have interest in Umno, PKR, PAS or Mahathir.

“Both sides will have issues campaigning on Facebook though UMNO will have the advantage of a larger base of users and a greater proportion of women in its audience” said Politweet.

Politweet said it calculated these results based on activities on the popular social networking site including page likes, posts, and shares.