Rafizi does a U-turn on his earlier INVOKE survey

(The Sun Daily) – Pakatan Harapan should not be buoyed by Invoke’s latest report that the Opposition alliance has a fair chance to dethrone Barisan Nasional in the 14th general election, said PKR vice-president Mohd Rafizi Ramli.

There is a sense of optimism but Pakatan needs to work harder and smarter to woo the voters – particularly the fence sitters said Rafizi, who founded the volunteer-based Invoke as a non-governmental organisation.

Invoke has released extensive survey findings which depict that Pakatan can win five states in the coming election and with a heightened prospect of winning parliamentary control with a simple majority.

It was one of the few analyses which favoured the Opposition as several similar studies have gone ahead with selecting the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN) as the winner because of its election machinery strength and prior track records.

To this, Rafizi said that the methodology of employing hundreds of volunteers to conduct street polling, telephone interviews and gauging feedback from the social media has discovered a serious flaw in the BN’s contention.

“BN goes into the election presuming that the Malay ground is firmly entrenched behind them. But we have discovered that about 60% of the Malay electorate have switched from supporting BN to becoming fence sitters or Pakatan voters.”

It will also nullify the proposed election delineation exercise as it switches around voters, who are in reality no longer supporters of BN, said Rafizi.

But the majority of the 60% of Malay voters still remain as fence-sitters now – that is the challenge for Pakatan to address, he told theSun here.

“How do we woo the fence sitters and how do we anticipate the last minute swing which is common during any election by the indecisive voters.”

Here is where Pakatan needs to double its efforts, said Rafizi, who added that BN often tends to offer something extra in the last leg of campaigning.