PETALING JAYA, Feb 6 — Ruling party Pakatan Harapan (PH) actually has 31 per cent of support from Malay voters nationwide, and not merely 11 per cent as claimed, PH chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today.

Anwar, who is also PKR president and the prime minister, cited preliminary data analysis from a team of data scientists when disclosing the 31 per cent figure.

"We see actually it is not true what has been spread, purportedly PH received 11 per cent of Malay support. If 11 per cent of Malay support, it’s not possible we were able to record the number of seats as recorded in the general elections recently,” he said, adding that these findings would be further updated in a week or two.

He noted, however, the share of Malay voters backing PH varied from state to state, and was low in states such as Kelantan and Terengganu — which are known to be strongholds of rival coalition Perikatan Nasional’s Islamist party PAS.

"Based on more detailed studies, overall, the votes obtained is 31 per cent of Malay votes. There are those which are low such as in Kelantan and Terengganu. There are those exceeding 50 per cent such as in Selangor, followed by Penang — Kuala Lumpur is the highest — and Negeri Sembilan,” he said.

Beyond Malay votes, Anwar noted that the unity government’s component parties have more than two-thirds of voters backing them when combined together, based on the 15th general elections held last November.

"And under the unity government’s collective strength, components such as PH, BN (Barisan Nasional), GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak) and GRS (Gabungan Rakyat Sabah) and a few other parties together already reaches two-thirds of the overall votes in the past general election.

"So if that is the situation, then we are confident, with two-thirds of MPs representing two-thirds of voters in the past general election, we can continue with confidence with these votes obtained as a strong team and use the available space to clean up from the culture of corruption and drive a more convincing economic growth,” he said.