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As Ridwan’s polling figures slip, Prabowo signals support
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President Prabowo Subianto (left) converses with Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Ridwan Kamil during a dinner at Garuda restaurant on Jl. Sabang in Central Jakarta on Thursday. (Instagram/@prabowo)
President Prabowo Subianto has offered a gesture of support for Jakarta gubernatorial hopeful Ridwan Kamil, as the candidate loses ground in opinion polls and struggles to energize supporters of the parties backing him.
Amid Prabowo’s packed agenda after being sworn in as the country’s eighth president in late October, he shared a dinner on Thursday with Ridwan at a Padang restaurant in Sabang, Central Jakarta. Photos and videos of the dinner appeared on both of their Instagram accounts.
“Alhamdulillah [thank God], an hour of joking and discussing many things,” Ridwan wrote in a caption accompanying his post. “Thank you, Mr. President, for this very special time.”
The dinner came as Ridwan, a West Java native and a former governor of the province, suffers a notable dip in public opinion polls.
His rival Pramono Anung, meanwhile, who is running alongside actor-turned-politician Rano Karno, has been gaining traction among Jakarta voters, partially as a result of the campaign’s use of the name Si Doel, the titular character in the popular 1990s Betawi-centric soap opera Si Doel Anak Sekolahan, whom Rano played. The Betawi people are the native inhabitants of Greater Jakarta.
Read also: Pramono overtakes Ridwan in latest Jakarta governor race opinion poll
A recent survey by Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI) found that support for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)-backed pair had grown significantly, from 28.4 percent in September to 41.6 percent in October.
