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runoff round is looming for the Jakarta gubernatorial election as the race is predicted to be competitive and none of the three candidates are likely to secure the required number of votes to claim a landslide victory.

While Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama still leads in the latest public opinion poll, his electability rating has dropped from the last time it was recorded.

Meanwhile, his rivals — former culture and education minister Anies Baswedan and former midranking military officer Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono — have each secured a significant electability rating, although both were just recently announced as candidates.

Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) revealed in its survey on Thursday that Ahok currently had a 45.5 percent electability rating. Meanwhile, Agus and Anies trailed him with 22.4 and 20.7 percent, respectively.

The survey was taken from Oct. 1 to Oct. 9 involving 648 respondents.

A different SMRC survey in June showed that Ahok secured a 53.4 electability rating that month, before either Agus and Anies had entered the race.

A general election law regulates that a candidate should secure at least 50 percent plus one vote in order for him or her to win an election in one round.

SMRC’s October survey showed that 11.6 percent of the voters questioned were still undecided.

That number of swing voters might mean something positive for Ahok because he could improve his campaign and increase his electability rating.

SMRC researcher Sirojudin Abbas said the survey also showed that most voters had based their decisions on which candidate to choose on his or her performance rather than on personal backgrounds, such as religion and ethnicity.

“Jakarta voters are rational,” Sirojudin said.

For example, 26.4 percent of the respondents said they would vote for a candidate who had performed well and 17.5 percent would vote for someone with firm and charismatic traits, compared to only 3.6 percent who said they would choose a candidate from the same religion.

“This is a good sign for our democracy,” said Syamsuddin Haris, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI).

“The survey shows that society can no longer be influenced by politicizing religion and ethnicity.”

Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent, recently spurred outrage among some Islamic groups after a video that went viral recently showed him quoting a verse from the Quran. The governor, speaking in front of a group of fishermen in the video, lambasted people who habitually used the verse to attack him, but the Islamic groups claimed he was instead attacking the Quran.

The governor eventually apologized to Muslims and said he did not mean to attack the Quran, but the Islamic groups continued the row by reporting him to the National Police for blasphemy. Last Friday, thousands of people went into the streets to press the police to jail Ahok for the alleged blasphemy.

The police are investigating. The SMRC survey was conducted before Ahok’s statement triggered outraged among certain Muslim groups.

A different survey released early this month by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) said that sectarian attacks on Ahok had, to some degree, hurt his electability rating. The percentage of Muslims who possibly want to only vote for a Muslim candidate reached 55 this month, up from 40 percent in March, according to LSI.

Muslims currently make up about 85 percent of the city’s registered voters.