Mohd Wan’s sentiments capture a broader mood shift that could spell trouble for PH in Saturday’s polls, said political analysts and observers.
PH won 17 out of 36 state seats in Negeri Sembilan in 2023 while BN won 14 and PN, five.
Hisommudin Bakar, executive director of the research firm Ilham Centre, told CNA that during the 2023 Negeri Sembilan election, PH had to rely heavily on votes from BN supporters to secure victory and ultimately form the state government, he said.
“The political alignment has completely changed with BN and PN joining forces. This alignment looks like it is enough to ensure their victory,” he said.
PH had collaborated with BN in Negeri Sembilan in 2023 after both coalitions formed the federal unity government following a hung parliament in the wake of the 2022 general election.
While they remain partners at the federal level, the dynamic on the ground at the state level has fractured. PH and BN are now taking each other head-on – a friction first seen in the Johor polls last month, where BN swept 48 of the 56 contested seats.
In Negeri Sembilan, BN has forged a strategic pact with component parties of PN, especially Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS).
This time, BN is contesting 25 seats, while PN component parties will contest the remaining 11, ostensibly so that they will not split the Malay vote.
However, the Malay-centric Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), whose ties with its PN partner PAS have soured, is notably running under its own logo and will be contesting 24 seats.
A party or coalition needs to win at least 19 seats to form the government in the state legislative assembly.
In a report on Friday, Ilham Centre said the PN-BN pact was on track to win at least 22 seats, while PH is projected to win at least nine seats. The remaining five seats however were difficult to predict, it said.
“The issue of Malay vote consolidation, political stability, and the need to prevent a PH victory were themes consistently repeated until they successfully influenced a large portion of Malay voters, including fence-sitters.
“The direct impact of this is that BN successfully strengthened its grip on almost all of its traditional strongholds, while PN reaped the benefits in the areas they contest through the spillover of votes from BN supporters,” said the centre.
It added that PH faces a deficit among the non-Malay voters, who have traditionally supported the coalition.
“Aside from a deficit in Malay support, they also failed to maintain maximum support among their own core voters,” said Ilham Centre.
Its prediction was based on fieldwork from Jul 18 to Jul 30, combining quantitative and qualitative methods such as face-to-face questionnaires, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews.
The study involved 1,002 respondents, six focus groups, and 38 in-depth interviews, and had a 3.1 per cent sampling error, it said.
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