{"id":19282,"date":"2013-05-03T11:10:17","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T16:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/on-eve-of-tight-election-most-malaysians-satisfied-overall\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:44:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:44:50","slug":"on-eve-of-tight-election-most-malaysians-satisfied-overall","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/05\/03\/on-eve-of-tight-election-most-malaysians-satisfied-overall\/","title":{"rendered":"On eve of tight election, most Malaysians satisfied overall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Malaysians head to the polls this Sunday in what the BBC\u00a0calls\u00a0the nation&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-22365485\">most hotly contested general election<\/a>,&#8221; most report feeling satisfied with the direction of their country.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition, along with its predecessor the Alliance Party, has been Malaysia&#8217;s dominant political force since independence in 1957. But BN&#8217;s hold slipped in the 2008 election &#8212; the 140 seats out of 222 it won marked the coalition&#8217;s worst performance in decades. And the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (People&#8217;s Alliance), led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim , is pressing hard to finally gain power at the national level.<!--more--><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Malaysia&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-22280948\">estimated 13 million voters<\/a>\u00a0will elect members of the federal Parliament and 12 of Malaysia&#8217;s 13 state legislative assemblies.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a survey conducted in March for a forthcoming Pew Research Center report, 82% of Malaysians said they were satisfied with the way things were going in the country, up from 76% in 2007. A similar percentage, 85%, called Malaysia&#8217;s economic situation good, up from 76% in 2007.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Malaysia&#8217;s economy remains strong. Real GDP grew by 5.6% last year, according to the current <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imf.org\/external\/pubs\/ft\/weo\/2013\/01\/pdf\/text.pdf\">World Economic Outlook\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0(pdf) from the International Monetary Fund; the IMF expects\u00a0Malaysia&#8217;s economy to grow 5.1% this year and 5.2% in 2014.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2013\/05\/03\/on-eve-of-tight-election-most-malaysians-satisfied-overall-2\/malaysia-priorities\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-246422\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-246422\" alt=\"malaysia-priorities\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2013\/05\/malaysia-priorities.png\" ><\/a><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But consumer prices are growing as well. After rising 1.7% in 2012, the IMF expects inflation to average 2.2% this year and 2.4% next year.\u00a0The BN government has spent billions of dollars subsidizing everything from rice and fuel to schoolbooks, according to the BBC report.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the Pew Research survey, 71% called rising prices a &#8220;very big problem;&#8221; a 38% plurality said inflation should be government&#8217;s top priority, more than those citing lack of job opportunities, public debt or the gap between rich and poor.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here are <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/global\/2013\/05\/02\/malaysia-topline-questionnaire-and-survey-methods\/\">more detailed survey results and a discussion of the methodology<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Malaysians head to the polls this Sunday in what the BBC\u00a0calls\u00a0the nation&#8217;s &#8220;most hotly contested general election,&#8221; most report feeling satisfied with the direction of their country. The Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition, along with its predecessor the Alliance Party, has been Malaysia&#8217;s dominant political force since independence in 1957. But BN&#8217;s hold slipped [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[109,116,53],"bylines":[842],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[507,514],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-19282","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-national-conditions","category-world-elections-1","category-world-elections-2","bylines-drew-desilver","formats-short-read","regions-countries-asia-pacific","regions-countries-international"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":296,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/05\/03\/on-eve-of-tight-election-most-malaysians-satisfied-overall\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"On eve of tight election, most Malaysians satisfied overall","description":"As Malaysians head to the polls this Sunday in what the BBC\u00a0calls\u00a0the nation's \"most hotly contested general election,\" most report feeling satisfied with the direction of their country. The Barisan&hellip;","og_title":"On eve of tight election, most Malaysians satisfied overall","og_description":"","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"b4c479ea6e9e1e003b72aecd3177ad30","termId":842}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107185,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19282\/revisions\/107185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=19282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}