Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo and former general Prabowo Subianto aren’t considered real contenders in the upcoming election, despite their high chances of being elected as president based on their popularity, a survey showed.
Adjie Alfaraby, a researcher at the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI), told reporters on Sunday that Prabowo, founder of Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), might do what he did in 2009 by forming a coalition with Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Megawati Sukarnoputri, who served as president from 2001 to 2004, is chairwoman of the PDI-P.
“In the end Prabowo submitted to the real politics and joined the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle,” Adjie said. He added that LSI found that Prabowo’s electability has not been able to boost the popularity of his party Gerindra.
“Based on several surveys LSI conducted we found that Gerindra was only favored by fewer than 10 percent of the respondents, a lot less that the top three political parties: Golkar, PDI-P and Democratic,” he said.
The Democratic Party is the ruling party chaired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, while presidential hopeful Aburizal Bakrie is chairman of the Golkar Party.
Meanwhile, Joko, whose name has been mentioned repeatedly as the most likable presidential candidate, would not be able to join the race unless he received consent from Megawati, Adjie said.
“Joko is not the structural leader of PDI-P. Even though he has high electability, his potential nomination as the presidential candidate is still causing a division within the party,” Adjie said.
However, he said, Joko’s massive popularity could be used as a very effective vote-getter for his party, just as Yudhoyono did in 2009 for his re-election.
“If Joko is nominated as the president or vice president, there’s a possibility that PDI-P can benefit from his electability,” he said.
Adjie said PDI-P’s hesitation to nominate Joko as the presidential candidate could hurt the party’s chance to win the legislative election.
“If Joko’s nomination is announced after the legislative election, PDI-P will not be able to get the maximum ‘Jokowi effect,’ ” Adjie said, referring to the governor by his nickname.
Adjie said that despite Joko and Prabowo’s popularity, there are only two “real” presidential candidates — Megawati and Golkar’s Aburizal.
Previous elections showed that most presidential candidates were usually party chairmen, Adjie said.
The Indonesian Survey Circle poll, conducted from Sept. 12 to Oct. 5, involved 1,200 respondents.
The survey also found that Golkar was favored the most, attracting 20.4 percent of respondents, while PDI-P and the Democratic Party scored 18.7 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively.
Adjie said Golkar has never been internally coherent and rarely found easy agreement on presidential nominations because of internal competition.
Recently a survey conducted by the United Data Center (PDB) announced that Joko remained secure at the top of the electability list of potential presidential candidates.
PDB founder Didik Rachbini said that 36 percent of those polled would choose the Jakarta governor for president.
In second was Gerindra founder Prabowo with 6.6 percent, while in third place was State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan with 5 percent. Placed fourth was former Vice President Jusuf Kalla with 4.6 percent, followed by former military chief Wiranto with 4 percent.
Didik said the survey also showed that the names put forward for the Democratic Party’s convention to select its presidential candidate had failed to strike a note with voters polled.
The survey showed many members or supporters of PDI-P had clearly shifted their favor to Joko, as evidenced by the 2 percent vote garnered by Megawati. The results of the survey also showed that Prabowo was losing ground. While his electability not long ago was not far behind Joko’s, latest numbers showed him to be trailing the governor by some distance.
Author/Autor:Yeremia Sukoyo
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/joko-may-not-win-despite-popularity/
