KUALA LUMPUR (April 30): Invoke Centre for Policy Initiatives says the think tank's survey found that support for Barisan Nasional among Malay voters fell to 18.1% this month from 41.1% in December.

Ivoke's founder Rafizi Ramli said the survey was carried out from April 12 to 23 on a stratified sample size of 1,961 registered voters that represents every group of voters based on their race, age group and social background.

The survey was conducted through call agents, who made up to 5,000 calls every day, and the survey margin error is 2.21%.

Rafizi, who is also PKR vice president, said the decline was most pronounced after February, when only 28.5% of the respondents indicated their support for BN, compared to 35.1% in January.

"The factor might be the coming together of Pakatan Harapan in the month of January. If you remember, January was the month that most of the significant decisions (by Pakatan) were made, including seat allocation, manifesto launch and announcement of candidates for prime minister.

"My belief is that there is a big swing from voters after February because Pakatan managed to show unity and commitment to defeat BN through these few decisions. That is why we saw the numbers begin to pick up massively from February onwards," he said.

Rafizi said the April survey showed that Pakatan and PAS each commanded 15% support among Malay voters, while 50.7% of the voters indicated that they are not sure, who refused to say, who they will vote for.

Within the Chinese community, Rafizi said support is heavily skewed towards Pakatan, but the April survey showed a drastic drop in the support level to 18.9% from 33% in March.

Support for BN from the Chinese also fell to 9.3% in April, from 14.3% in March.

Rafizi said majority of the Chinese, or 66.3% of all respondents in April, have decided not to reveal their voting preference after Parliament was dissolved, while the remaining 3.9% of the respondents said they will support PAS.

As for the Indian community, Rafizi said the April survey was the first since Invoke began tracking election support in January 2017, that showed Pakatan has garnered more support than BN.

Pakatan has 32.9% support among Indian respondents in April, against 18.7% for BN and 1.2% for PAS, while the remaining 46.9% were either unsure or declined to reveal their voting preference.

Rafizi said the survey found that 40.5% of the respondents are confident of a change in the federal government after the 14th general election. Another 27.6% do not think that there will be a change in the federal government, while the remaining 31.9% indicated that they were not sure.

On the choice of prime minister, Rafizi said 29.9% of the respondents picked Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, while 23.8% chose Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Another 10.4% opted for PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, while the remaining 35.9% said none of the three leaders were their choice.