Another Poll Gives Joko Presidential Lead

Fuente: 
The Jakarta Globe
Fecha de publicación: 
26 Nov 2013

Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo has again topped a poll of prospective presidential candidates, despite there being no move by his party to officially nominate him for the nation’s highest office.

In a survey by Australia-based Roy Morgan Research, Joko was chosen by 37 percent of respondents, followed by Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) co-founder and chief patron Prabowo Subianto, who was favored by 15 percent.

“Joko is 22 points ahead of Prabowo. Such a significant difference is rarely seen in a presidential or vice presidential election,” Roy Morgan Research executive director for Asia Pacific Debnath Guharoy said on Monday.

Behind Joko and Prabowo are Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, who took 14 percent, Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, who was favored by 6 percent of respondents, and State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan, who also garnered 6 percent.

Additionally, former vice president Jusuf Kalla was favored by 5 percent of the survey’s respondents, while former Constitutional Court chief justice Mahfud M.D. was picked by 3 percent, and Hatta Rajasa, the coordinating minister for the economy, was favored by 2 percent of respondents.

Other familiar figures also emerged in the survey, including Ani Yudhoyono, the wife of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono; National Democrat Party (NasDem) founder and chairman Surya Paloh; and Pramono Edhie Wibowo, Ani’s brother and the former Army chief of staff.

Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan and Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the former finance minister and current World Bank managing director, received less than 2 percent of votes each.

Joko’s electability was on par with that of his party, the PDI-P, which earned 24 percent of votes in the survey, ahead of Golkar on 21 percent and Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party on 15 percent.

“Even now, the clear winner of both the legislative election and presidential election is proving to be obvious,” Debnath said.

He said the difference in votes between the PDI-P and Golkar was something that the public would need to keep an eye on because there was room for the two parties to switch places by the time the legislative election finally rolled around next April.

“There is still much time before the legislative election to work toward improvements and change. It is wrong for any party to give up in this phase, or even to celebrate a temporary victory,” Debnath said.

The Roy Morgan Research survey was conducted in October, with 2,985 respondents aged 17 years and above across 33 provinces nationwide.

Despite having consistently topped election polls by various survey institutions, the PDI-P has yet to decide whether it will officially nominate Joko as its presidential candidate, as party officials continue to wait for Megawati to make the call.

Ari Junaedi, a political analyst from the University of Indonesia, criticized the PDI-P’s strategy, saying its decision to put on hold the announcement of its presidential candidate may inspire a smear campaign by those trying to keep Joko out of next year’s race.

“Although the PDI-P has not yet appointed Joko as its candidate, his presence has caused quite a stir among other presidential candidates. How much more heated will things get should Megawati make her official announcement?” Ari said.

He added he had heard of several legislative candidates from other parties who conceded they were facing difficulties campaigning due to the lack of popularity of their parties’ presidential nominees.

The PDI-P, he said, may face grave consequences should it fail to nominate Joko in the near future, or should it eventually decide not to nominate him at all, as other PDI-P members were simply not on par with the Jakarta governor.

“If the PDI-P was the Barcelona football club, then Joko would be Lionel Messi. It would be a huge loss for the PDI-P not to raise his profile. It will forever remain an opposition party if it doesn’t nominate Joko Widodo,” Ari said.

M. Qodari, a political analyst at Indo Barometer, another pollster, said last Thursday that there were several reasons behind the PDI-P’s reluctance to officially announce Joko’s candidacy.

“The first is that the PDI-P would first like to see whether Joko will remain popular until next year’s legislative election,” he said, adding that it was also possible the party was merely trying to save Joko from possible attacks by other candidates and their parties.

“A third reason could be that Megawati is still looking to run again next year,” Qodari said.

Meanwhile, Joko continues to earn mounting public support from community groups.

On Sunday, a group of people from Yogyakarta and Bali, who have named themselves the Public Cooperation for Joko, declared their official support for Joko to run in the 2014 presidential election in front of the Yogyakarta Post Office.

Author/Autor:Carlos Paath& Markus Junianto Sihaloho

Source/Fuente:http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/another-poll-gives-joko-presidential...