GE15: The final sprint, last 46 hours critical for parties to convince voters
SHAH ALAM - The last 46 hours of the campaigns will be a critical time for all parties contesting in the 15th General Election (GE15) to win the support of voters in all 222 Parliamentary seats.
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) political sociology lecturer Prof Dr Sivamurugan Pandian said it was different from the previous election, GE15 has yet to witness any parties or coalition that guaranteed enough support to win any seats contested.
He said this was due to a multitude of new factors seen as becoming the deal-breaker, among them were the addition of political coalitions and candidates who contested, the existence of the new total voters and the rise in on-the-fence voters.
"Now there is not a single seat that could be considered safe. This was due to competition being added because of the rise of voters. Previously the total was 14.9 million but now it is almost 22 million.
"Previously, there were only two coalitions which are BN and Pakatan Harapan (PH), now there are four with Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA) added along with the total candidates contesting reaching 945 candidates.
"It could be said that each seat is important and the added recent candidate dismissal and the change from one party to another.
“All of it could be the influence towards the voter behaviour patterns," he said to Sinar Harian on Wednesday.
Sivamurugan said other than ensuring the loyal voters remained with each of their parties when voting, the most important step needed to be done by parties in the last two days was to improve the efforts to convince the on-the-fence voters to support them.
He said the total number of on-the-fence voters in this election was seen as significant to ensure the victory of a Parliamentary constituency.
"According to research done by USM, almost all seats contested had between 38 to 40 per cent of voters who have yet to decide.
"Those who belong in the grey group (on-the-fence) earlier if the party utilises their final sprint, even 20 per cent of the total is enough, this is with the condition that loyal voters could be maintained," he said.
Sivamurugan said with competition getting fiercer nearing the last day of the campaign, there is a possibility that contestants will use desperate tactics such as spreading slanders and using money to win votes.
"It has happened before and among them were the actions of excessively killing a character, insulting, humiliating and generating a controversy that the public did not have the time to find its legitimacy.
"That is also the same with misuse of funds such as using it to ask voters to come back when they need their support," he said.
Sivamurugan explained with the higher political literacy of the public that was seen as not too encouraging, the issue raised was an effort to influence the voters and further affect the results of GE15.
Ilham Centre researcher Mujibu Abd Muis said the last two days were supposed to be used by parties and coalitions to carry out targeted campaigns for two main groups, namely loyal voters and voters on the fence.
"Parties contesting needed to avoid releasing any contradictory statement between the leadership and creating any trivial controversies that could affect the sentiments of the two target groups," he said.
