'€œWe carried out the survey in the midst of the campaigning period from Aug.13 to 19. The candidate pair no.1 (Soekarwo-Saifullah) is in the highest position by obtaining 49.8 percent of votes,'€ said LSI'€™s director of research Arman Salam on Sunday, as quoted by Antara news agency.

Meanwhile, candidate pair Khofifah Indar Parawansa-Herman S.Sumawiredja ranked second by securing 12.5 percent of votes.

'€œTherefore, it'€™s likely that the election will take place only in one-round,'€ said Arman.

He further explained that candidate pair Bambang DH-Said Abdullah ranked third with 3.2 percent of votes while Eggi Sudjana with his running-mate Muhammad Sihat ranked the lowest with 0.7 percent votes.

'€œOther results, 4.1 percent of respondents kept their choices secret while '€˜swing voters'€™ stood at 29.8 percent. In the survey, the margin error stood at the range of 4.8 percent,'€ said Arman.

He said the survey was carried out using '€˜multistage-random sampling'€™ with a total of 440 respondents. The survey took place via direct interviews and questionnaire filling.

Arman said without strong financial power and support from political parties, it would be quite difficult for Eggi-Sihat to keep its strength equal to that of the other candidates.

One of the most interesting findings in the survey is, female voters tended to support Soekarwo-Saifullah. The incumbent candidate pair received 45.5 percent of votes while Khofifah who was the only female candidate got only 11.8 percent vote.

Arman said the incumbent candidate was supported by strong financial power and political machines and they were among '€œgovernor and deputy governors that still worked in harmony and were unified'€. (ebf)

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