State polls: Perikatan continues to get youth support, study finds

PETALING JAYA: Youth voters continue to show support for Perikatan Nasional ahead of the six state polls, a survey by Ilham Centre finds.

In a report published Friday (Aug 11), the research centre found that the support pattern for Perikatan from the 18-25 age group remained the same since the 15th General Election.

“And Pakatan Harapan is facing challenges to attract their support,” it said.

Ilham Centre said the political coalitions have focused on attracting support from the 4.9 million youth voters aged 18 to 39 during the campaigning period.

It also unveiled that there was no significant change of support from the youth for the unity government.

“Even though there were various programmes implemented by the government to attract the youth voters such as the Temu Anwar rallies, Jelajah Kampus, the RM200 e-wallet cash among others, it has yet to result in enough interest from the younger voters,” the survey found.

The survey involved 2,304 respondents from Negri Sembilan, Selangor, Penang, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu during the second phase held between July 29 and Aug 8.

There were 48 respondents involved in in-depth interviews covering youth, local leaders and women.

Ilham Centre also found that youth voters were more comfortable to share their political views.

“There is no confidentiality on their votes, instead, the youth are more open to voice their support in the state polls.

“They are inclined to make decisions based on demography, psychographic and locality,” it said.

The study also predicted the “Sanusi effect ” referring to caretaker Kedah mentri besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor rising popularity on social media might influence voters in the five states other than Kedah.

“Youth voters across the six states admitted that they saw Sanusi’s videos on their TikTok accounts and admire him as a symbol of courage who is brave to share conflicting views against the government.

“From this trend, Perikatan is expected to gain from the Sanusi effect,” it said.