Poll: Nation worse off under Najib

A majority of Malaysiakini readers believed that the country will be worse off under the leadership of Najib Razak in a weekend survey.

Of the 5,023 readers who participated in the Malaysiakini survey from July 11 to 14, about 75 percent said if Najib was to become prime minister, the country would be “worse off than today”.

Najib received a vote of support from 4.3 percent of those in the survey while 17 percent said there would be no change under his leadership.

The survey also found that about 68 percent believed that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would not hand over power to his deputy, Najib, in two years’ time as he had promised.

As to whether Abdullah can bring about reforms in the final two years of his term, 88 percent said ‘no’.

According to the survey, 75 percent, or 3.751 participants, would like Abdullah to quit by the end of the year with more than half wanting him to resign “immediately”.

Meanwhile, PKR de facto leader is by far the most preferred leader to take over from Abdullah with 68 percent of the votes.

Umno senior vice-president Muhyiddin Yassin is the favourite within the ruling party with 7 percent, followed closely by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (6.8 percent) and Najib (2.4 precent)

Interestingly, about 13 percent did not favour any of leaders stated on the list.

About 68.5 percent wanted the opposition Pakatan Rakyat to take power by the end of this year, with close to a quarter saying that this should be done by Sept 16 as promised by Anwar.