Dems losing support: Survey

TRIBUNNEWS.COM/DANY PERMANAAccording to the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), the Democratic Party is losing public confidence, recording only 13.7 percent voter support in a recent survey, down from 21 percent in 2009.

In the survey conducted in February, the Golkar Party managed to gain more votes than Democratic Party.

“If the election were held today, Golkar will win the most votes, reaching up to 15.5 percent. The Democratic Party will finish in second place with 13.7 percent votes,” LSI researcher Burhanuddin Muhtadi told a press conference in Central Jakarta on Sunday.

The declining support for the ruling party was deemed a result of a number of graft cases implicating party executives that have recently come under the spotlight.

The Democratic Party still gained more votes than the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which was favored by 13.6 percent of respondents.

The Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), the United Development Party (PPP), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Peoples Conscience Party (Hanura), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) have not yet posed a real challenge to the ruling party after failing to gain more than 5 percent of votes.

Burhanuddin said that the median parties had failed to attract Democratic Party wavering supporters to vote for their parties, kompas.com reported. (riz)