The outlook is bright for Barisan Nasional (BN) to remain in power after the 13th general election (GE13) under the leadership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who appears to have the support of the majority of voters.

According to a GE13 opinion poll conducted by the Institute of Malaysian Political Analysis of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and the National Professors Council (MPN), 58 per cent of the respondents supported Najib as prime minister while opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim received 42 per cent support.

As for the preferred party, BN received 55 per cent support, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) 41 per cent while the remaining four per cent went to the Independents.

According to the survey too, Najib received the nod from 57.6 per cent of the respondents aged 30 and below while the remaining percentage chose Anwar.

The biggest support for Najib came from cohorts aged 30 to 50, at 59.1 per cent while those aged above 50 in favour of Najib made up 57.2 per cent.

The poll was conducted via phone involving 3,550 respondents who are eligible voters including in Sabah and Sarawak, using the random stratified sampling method with a 0.022 margin of error.

In terms of racial breakdown, 63.5 per cent of the Malay respondents supported Najib, Chinese 35.3 per cent, Indians 52.7 per cent and others 63.1 per cent.

Najib received 60.6 per cent of the support from female voters and 56.6 per cent from male voters, according to the poll conducted from April 28 to 30 during the second week of the GE13 campaign.

Based on the survey, BN is also expected to retain Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Perlis, Terengganu, Pahang, Sabah and Sarawak.

With the rather high level of support for BN in the central, north and east zones, BN also has a good chance to recapture Selangor and Kedah and to give the opposition pact a very tough fight in Penang and Kelantan.

The survey found that 72 per cent of the respondents in the south zone comprising Johor, Melaka and Negeri Sembilan supported Najib as prime minister with also 72 per cent stating they would vote for BN and 28 cent for PR. BN is seen as having the edge in the central zone - Federal Territories (Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya), Selangor and Perak - with 53 per cent of the respondents stating support for Najib and the rest for Anwar.

In the north zone comprising Perlis, Kedah and Penang, support for Najib was at 55 per cent.

As for the party of choice, BN received the bigger percentage in the central and north zones at 48 per cent and 53 per cent respectively compared to that for PR and Independents.

In the peninsula's East Coast states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang, it was 55 per cent support for Najib and 51 per cent for BN from the respondents, and 45 per cent for Anwar and 38 per cent for PR.

In Sabah and Sarawak, support for Najib was at 65 per cent and at 62 per cent for BN.

Overall, although PR is giving BN a stiff fight in their obsession to capture Putrajaya, BN is still expected to win comfortably in the GE13.