KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin remains the most popular among political party leaders in Malaysia, a survey shows.

In the 'Public Sentiment of Malaysian Electorate on Political and Leadership Issues' released yesterday, O2 Malaysia said Muhyiddin garnered approval rating amounting to 51 per cent out of 1,582 respondents aged 18 years old and above that were polled throughout the country via an online survey.

According to the survey conducted between March 26 to April 9, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang stood second at 34 per cent approval rating, followed by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (30 per cent) and PKR President Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim trails behind at 26 per cent.

Meanwhile, Amanah president Mohamad Sabu and UMNO president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi each received 22 per cent and 11 per cent approval ratings respectively from the survey based on a random stratified sampling method representative of age groups, gender, ethnicity, and state constituency.

In addition, the study conducted to identify voters' level of support and inclination towards the current national political development, showed the approval ratings amongst two former prime ministers are at the median level, lower than Muhyiddin.

The time-series analysis revealed that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's approval ratings of 40 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 has dropped to 29 per cent by the third quarter of the year, and recovered slightly to 33 per cent in the first quarter this year.

"Meanwhile, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's popularity in the second quarter of 2020 stood at 24 per cent, slipped to 21 per cent in the third quarter but improved to 27 per cent in the first quarter this year," according to the survey.

O2 Malaysia is a research and social engagement centre focusing on public sentiments encompassing politics and election, socio-economics and public policy research with an eye for data analytics.

-- BERNAMA