Letters: To poll or not to poll: Taxi logic

For the last three Indonesian national elections, I have conducted my own "research" into the voting preferences of the common people. (My degree of accuracy has been more or less five percent).

This involves hiring 20 taxis (on this occasion nine in Jakarta and 11 in Yogyakarta), all selected at random. I usually have a chat in Bahasa Indonesia with the drivers before asking them about who they intend to vote for.

As my friend Martin O'Shannessy, CEO of Newspoll Australia says: "the process may not be all that scientific, but the results are interesting".

Of the 20 drivers, one suggested he would golput (not vote); one indicated his strong preference for Prabowo (seemingly unaware that Prabowo Subiyanto is in fact a vice-presidential candidate); and four drivers clearly would vote for the Megawati team.

The remainder were enthusiastic supporters of the incumbent - with the election slogan lanjutkan (continue) clearly factoring in their choice.

Not one driver surveyed indicted that he would vote for the Kalla-Wiranto team.

This would indicate a 70 percent vote for Susilo Bambang Yudiyono (SBY), a decisive first round victory (which is more or less consistent with the results of the current professionally conducted polls).

In future, perhaps everyone should save their money and just get me to ride around in taxis for a day and I will provide the results as a free service.

Rob Goodfellow

Yogyakarta