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burizal Bakrie is the most-talked about presidential candidate on social media outlets, but he is also considered by netizens as the least preferable person to become the country’s next leader, according to a study by politicawave.com.

The study, released on Wednesday, found that outgoing Constitutional Court chief justice Mahfud MD, former vice president Jusuf Kalla and Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) chief patron Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto are the most preferred presidential candidates according to the country’s avid social media users.

Politicawave.com, a political consultancy that monitors political conversation online, said that the three figures garnered favorable impressions on six social media outlets — Twitter, Facebook, blogs, online forums, online news and YouTube — which catered for roughly 60 million Indonesian Internet users.

Yose Rizal, the consultancy’s director, said that Mahfud topped the electability index with 10.05 points, followed by Kalla with 7.61 points and Prabowo, the former commander of the Army Special Forces (Kopassus), with 3.87 points.

Mahfud’s image was boosted by his apparent no-nonsense attitude and many of his controversial rulings, including his decision to order the dissolution of upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas.

Social media users praised Kalla’s humanitarian work with the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) and also his performance while serving as vice president between 2004 and 2009. “Prabowo was criticized for [his alleged roles in] human rights violations,” Yose said during a press conference in Jakarta. “However, people love him thanks to the victory of Jokowi-Ahok in the Jakarta gubernatorial election,” he said, referring to Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his deputy, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who is a Gerindra politician.

The former general is perceived as a strict leader and the strongest presidential candidate of Javanese descent, Yose explained.

Gerindra deputy chairman Fadli Zon claimed that Prabowo’s rising popularity was due to the party’s strategic online campaign.

“We have a special online team to post the latest news about Prabowo.His Facebook page has garnered more than 1.5 million likes,” he said.

The study, conducted between October and December 2012, found that Internet users had both negative and positive impressions of Megawati Soekarnoputri, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairperson and former president of Indonesia.

The study found significant numbers of negative conversations on social media about Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan and most frequently Golkar’s presidential candidate, Aburizal.

“Aburizal is the most talked-about presidential hopeful on social media, but people talk negatively about him. He should pay more attention to this, because opinions on social media are contagious,” Yose said.

Aburizal was lambasted over cases implicating his business empire, particularly financial practices and the Lapindo mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java.

Social media users also mocked his declining popularity in some surveys and his television commercials. They also told him to learn about leadership from Kalla, a respected Golkar Party politician.

The study said Aburizal was mentioned in 32,670 conversations, Prabowo in 19,377 and Mahfud in 13,302. Dahlan was cited in 11,895 conversations, followed by Megawati and Kalla with 10,720 and 10,606 conversations respectively.

During the Jakarta gubernatorial elections, the political consultancy found that Jokowi was the most-talked about candidate and was also seen positively by netizens. His success in gaining the support of social media users is believed to have been crucial to his victory in the recent gubernatorial election.

Political analyst Yunarto Wijaya of the Charta Politika think tank said that the opinions of Indonesian social media users, who were mostly young and came from middle-class families, could create a snowball effect in the 2014 presidential election.

“The youth and middle-class are social influencers of people from other socioeconomic segments. Their thoughts [about presidential hopefuls] on social media will easily affect the decisions of swing voters,” he said. (yps)