Aburizal, Prabowo Remain Close in Latest Poll, but Joko Still Top

Fuente: 
The Jakarta Globe
Fecha de publicación: 
23 Dic 2013

Bakrie, chairman of the Golkar Party, and Prabowo Subianto, founder and chief patron of the Great Indonesia Movement Party — known as Gerindra — are neck-and-neck in the most recent poll of prospective presidential candidates, a survey showed on Sunday.

Hanta Yuda, executive director of Pol-Tracking Institute, said the survey, conducted from Sept. 13 to Oct. 11, found that Aburizal and Prabowo’s electability levels were almost equal.

“Prabowo was voted for by 11.73 percent of the respondents while Aburizal got 11.67 percent,” Hanta said.

The survey, conducted in 33 provinces, asked respondents to name candidates off the top of their heads.

Hanta said the method could provide a more solid view of the public’s candidate preferences.

Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo unsurprisingly topped the survey with 37.46 percent of the votes.

Hanta said the variety of candidates picked by respondents indicated that people were not especially swayed by the backgrounds of individuals.

“Joko is a figure who started his political career in the regional bureaucracy, Aburizal started as a [business] professional and Prabowo has a military background,” he said.

“The fact that a regional leader has managed to enter the orbit of figures with the highest electability is a completely new phenomenon in Indonesia’s electoral democracy,” Hanta said.

The survey also found that Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman and former president, Megawati Soekarnoputri only garnered 3.31 percent of the vote, lower than former vice president Jusuf Kalla with 6.12 percent and People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) chairman Wiranto with 5.78 percent.

Joko has been favored by most political polls this year as the candidate who is most likely to win the presidential election.

Last week, surveys conducted by the Cyrus Network showed that Joko could make almost any party win the election.

Cyrus Network research director Eko Dafid Afianto said the PDI-P politician could even make parties that currently attract little support — such as the Crescent Star Party (PBB), National Democrat Party (NasDem) or Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI) — a winner if he joined one of them.

Eko said Joko could potentially lift those parties’ electability to over 40 percent and the electability of his own party, PDI-P, to 60 percent, provided the party made it clear that it would only support Joko as a presidential candidate.

The survey also said Joko could boost Golkar’s electability to a high of 53 percent and Gerindra to 48 percent.

Cyrus Network conducted the survey in two stages. The first stage was held from Aug. 21-27 and the second from Sept. 13-17.

The surveys concluded by saying that Joko would not have to worry about what party he chose to run with as he could easily move to another and take it to victory in 2014.

A different survey by Indo Barometer found that many young voters, aged between 17 and 30 years, wanted Joko to become Indonesia’s next president.

A politician said the standing of a presidential candidate could change rapidly.

 

Author/Autor:Anastasia Winanti

Source/Fuente:http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/aburizal-prabowo-remain-close-in-lat...