COMMENT The upcoming 13th general election will be a much-anticipated, most exciting and nail-biting election in the country's history.

Speculation on the election date has gone on for almost one year. The options for the election timing is getting shorter. It is expected that the GE will be held on April 14 or 21.

There are three possible outcomes for the coming election:

Scenario 1: The present status quo remains

Scenario 2: A reduced majority for BN

Scenario 3: BN regains two-thirds majority

There are 222 parliamentary seats in the country, of which about 150 are Malay/bumiputera seats, 30 mixed seats and 42 Chinese-majority seats.

In the 2008 elections, BN won 140 seats and the opposition won 82 seats. A further breakdown shows that Umno won 79 seats, MCA 15 seats, MIC three, and Gerakan two, PKR won 31 seats, DAP 28 seats and PAS 23 seats.

From our analysis, it is becoming quite clear that the rural population has largely returned to BN, in particular rural Malays has largely shifted back to Umno.

In this regard, Umno is expected to win more seats than in 2008. It is likely that Umno may win 85 to 90 parliamentary seats, up from their existing 79 seats. There is also a clear trend that Indian voters in rural and semi urban areas have also shifted back to BN. However, the urban voters are largely still with Pakatan Rakyat.

Even though urban Malay voters may support Pakatan and even if more urban Malays were to support Pakatan in the urban seats, it will not increase seats for Pakatan as these urban seats are already held by DAP...