Cost of living remains Malaysians' top concern post GE15

SHAH ALAM - Cost of living remains Malaysians' top concern post 15th General Election (GE15).

This was discovered in a survey on the people's sentiment in regards to the Prime Minister Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim Government's performance following their 100 days in office since last November.

The study involved 35,077 participants from media and news consumers across the country.

It was conducted by O2 Malaysia research firm with five mainstream media outlets namely Sinar Harian, Awani, The Star, Sin Chew dan Malaysia Namban for 10 days starting from Feb 6 to 16.

Over half of the respondents were Malay males from the Peninsular. Notably, most of the respondents were also adults at over 40 years of age, live in the West Coast and had a monthly household income of less than RM4,500.

With regards to the post-GE15 government's performance in addressing the issues related to cost of living, over half of the respondents were not satisfied especially when it came to issus such as wages and job opportunities.

Among other issues that the respondents were dissatisfied with were political stability, education and interracial relations.

Some were also not satisfied with healthcare and the management of natural disasters.

When asked to choose five out of 20 issues deemed important to be solved by leaders, prices of goods and inflation still topped the list with 80 per cent votes from respondents. The was followed by education, job opportunities, healthcare and political stability making up the top five problems for the government to overcome.

Out of 12 issues, participants were also instructed to select five issues that was of concern at the moment. While purchasing basic necessities obviously came first at a 80 per cent, the other four consist of savings, debts,wages and education fees respectively.

In GE15, while PH and its allies DAP and Muda were still short of the 112 magic number needed to form the simple majority in Parliament despite having won the most number of seats, an alliance with its former nemesis BN brought in 30 seats whereas GPS, GRS and Warisan raked in another 31 seats.

The opposition's PN on the other hand was initially close behind PH after winning a total of 73 seats including 22 by Pas.

After a five-day political impasse following inconclusive polls, Anwar was finally sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister at the National Palace on Nov 24, 2022 which ended one of the most dramatic elections in Malaysia's history, after no party managed to secure a majority to form a government for the first time since independence in 1957.