Rafizi: Pakatan, PKR have upper hand in multi-cornered fights during GE15

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 4 — PKR and Pakatan Harapan (PH) have the advantage in a multi-cornered fight in the 15th general election, as 110 of the 165 seats on the peninsula are multi-ethnic, PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli reportedly said.

Rafizi said PH can benefit in these fights by banking on fence-sitters, as he said they would prefer a party with more constructive ideas and coherent policies.

"Our primary focus is to win over the fence-sitters. The party stands a good chance of taking Putrajaya if it could win the votes of those who haven’t made up their minds.

"Multi-cornered fights allow more options for fence-sitters. With more options, the fence-sitters will go to the party with more constructive ideas and coherent policies,” he was quoted as saying by The Malaysian Insight.

"I believe that in our core traditional areas which are urban, semi-urban with multi-racial seats, we still have the upper hand,” he added,

Rafizi cited data from his analytical firm Invoke for June, which showed 62 per cent of voters being fence-sitters, saying PH need only convince 30 per cent of this group to win a majority and form the federal government.

"Most said they didn’t know or hadn’t decided yet. But some just didn’t want to reveal who they preferred,” he reportedly said.

Rafizi also said that in a multi-cornered fight, anything more than 40 per cent of the vote can be considered a win.

"Currently we have 15 per cent hardcore supporters among the voters, Umno maybe has 20 per cent and Perikatan Nasional maybe 12 per cent. However, the only concern now is whether PKR is able to maximise its election campaign in the next three months.

"The most [vulnerable] party in a multi-cornered fight is PKR. DAP is not [vulnerable] because the party mostly stands in Chinese and non-Malay majority seats,” he was quoted as saying.

Rafizi said PKR could lose a seat if another party should steal even a small percentage of its traditional voters.

"For DAP that won’t make any difference, but it will affect us and of course, to a certain extent, Amanah who is also standing in multi-racial seats,” he reportedly said.