Jakarta. A new survey released on Wednesday has revealed that the ruling Democratic Party and the scandal-ridden Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) have topped the list of Indonesia’s least popular political parties in Indonesia.
The polling body, Charta Politika, said that when respondents were asked which party they were most averse to, 17.1 percent chose the Democratic Party, while 8.5 percent said the PKS. Coming in at third was the Golkar Party, which garnered 6.6 percent of the vote in the survey.
Out of a total of 1,200 respondents, 45.8 percent refused to answer which party they disliked the most.
“What’s interesting about this survey is which parties are most disliked by the people,” Charta Politika researcher Yunarto Wijaya said on Wednesday as quoted by Indonesian news portal Republika.co.id.
Several PKS cadres have been embroiled in a high-profile beef import graft scandal, while numerous high-ranking members of the Democratic Party have been implicated in corruption cases including the Hambalang sports center corruption.
In addition to Indonesia’s most unpopular parties, the survey also polled who the most disliked presidential candidates were among respondents. Dangdut singer and Islamic fundamentalist Rhoma Irama was chosen as the least-electable candidate, while Golkar chairman and presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie placed second.
The survey was conducted between March 1–8 and questioned a random assortment of eligible voters from every Indonesian province.
Democratic Party deputy secretary general Saan Mustopa blamed the results of the survey on the increased amount of scrutiny the Democrats have received since taking power.
“This is a consequence of the Democratic Party being the ruling party,” Saan said. “The ruling party certainly gets more attention compared to other parties. No matter how insignificant an action [committed] by a Democrat, it always gets attention. This is what fills the sphere of public opinion.”
He added that negative reports by the press portray the Democratic Party as the most corrupt party in the country, even though several others were actively involved in graft cases.
“The Democratic Party is not the one and only party [involved in corruption],” he said. “This is a challenge, and a major task for us to regain public trust.”
The PKS, however, has expressed optimism that it will secure a significant amount of votes during the upcoming April 9 legislative elections.
PKS campaign chief Syahfan Sampurno recently said that he was confident his party would place in the top three during the election. Though surveys like Charta Politika’s have pointed to the party’s declining reputation among the Indonesian public, he noted that the PKS has conducted its own surveys that show the party would secure a respectable amount of seats.
“After a year of PKS president [Anis Matta] and the [party's] board members visiting the regions, Inshallah, we are sure that it’s imminent we will finish in the top three,” Syahfan told Indonesian news portal Kompas.com recently. “We have calculated the amount of seats we will gain from every electoral district, and which districts need more [attention].”
He declined to mention which electoral districts were being targeted by the PKS.
According to Charta Politika’s survey, the PKS is set to finish with the 10th-most seats this year, a sharp decline from its 2009 finish when it secured the fourth-most.
Based on a survey conducted by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) in January, the PKS was among four parties that it predicted would not pass the necessary 3.5 percent parliamentary threshold needed to secure legislative seats. The LSI measured the PKS’s electability at 2.2 percent.
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/democrats-pks-top-list-unpopular-par...
