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Race tightens as balloting nears
Make it count!: People paint murals with the theme “2019 Elections for Democracy” in Denpasar, Bali, on March 12
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ake it count!: People paint murals with the theme “2019 Elections for Democracy” in Denpasar, Bali, on March 12. The event organized by the local elections commission aims to encourage young people to make use of their right to vote on April 17.(JP/Zul Trio Anggono)
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo remains the man to beat less than a month before election day, according to the latest surveys, though one of them indicates that the incumbent candidate is losing ground in some key regions, including his home turf.
The latest presidential election polls — conducted from late February until early March by Jakarta-based pollsters Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting (SMRC) and the Kompas daily — put the Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin ticket in a double-digit lead over the Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno ticket.
The Kompas survey, however, shows a drop in Jokowi’s electability, in stark contrast to the SMRC survey, which has Jokowi-Ma’ruf on an upward trend.
Kompas, which polled 2,000 respondents across 34 provinces, found that the Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin ticket’s electability dropped to 49.2 percent from 52.6 percent in October, while the Prabowo-Sandiaga ticket increased to 37.4 percent from 32.7 percent over the same period.
One of the striking findings in the Kompas survey is that Jokowi lost ground in provinces considered his strongholds, such as Central and East Java, as well as Papua and West Papua.
In his native Central Java, also considered a major stronghold of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), support for Jokowi went down by 13.8 points, while his electability in East Java dropped 12.5 points.
On the other hand, the former Jakarta governor’s electability rose in Prabowo’s strongholds of West Java and Banten, but just by 2.8 percentage points. Overall, Jokowi-Ma’ruf’s electability across Java dropped by 5.8 percentage points.
With election day only weeks away, it would not be easy for Prabowo to overtake Jokowi, given the two-digit gap, but analysts say there is no room for complacency on the part of Jokowi.
Firman Noor, head of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences’ (LIPI) Political Research Center, said there were several possible reasons for the drop in electability measured by Kompas.
“First, it seems Prabowo-Sandiaga’s political machine is working better than that of Jokowi-Ma’ruf. It’s possible that the Jokowi-Ma’ruf campaign has been lulled into complacency by the previous survey results,” he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. “Prabowo’s supporters may also be spurred on by their underdog status. They have fewer financial and political resources backing them, and that may have increased their motivation.”
Firman said the Prabowo-Sandiaga campaign’s focus on economic issues may have paid off.
“Polls have shown that the people are mostly concerned about unemployment and affordable prices, which Prabowo and Sandiaga have continually come back to. Even during the last debate on education, Sandiaga related it to the economy,” he said, adding that the Jokowi campaign’s focus on infrastructure lacked potency in comparison.
“Prabowo has also managed to soften his image compared to 2014. He is no longer seen as a potential dictator by the public,” Firman said. “His current running mate is also a young, hip and good-looking man, which carries a lot of weight with Indonesian voters.”
Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Arya Fernandes said both campaigns might have concentrated too much on gaining ground in the opposing side’s strongholds. “The Jokowi-Ma’ruf campaign has been very aggressive in trying to win in West Java and Banten and may have decreased their focus on Central and East Java,” he told the Post.
Arya added that Jokowi’s electability might have suffered from the lack of a major figure from eastern Indonesia in the campaign. “In 2014, Jokowi had [Sulawesi native] Jusuf Kalla as someone who could represent the eastern part of Indonesia,” he said. “This time, there is nobody like that.”
Arya predicted that both campaigns would turn their focus back on their respective main bases of support in the last weeks of the campaign period.
The Prabowo-Sandiaga campaign reveled in the poll results, claiming that it signaled that the ticket would claim victory come April 17.
“The Kompas poll result is an indirect message to all Indonesian people that on April 17, Prabowo will become the president,” Gerindra politician and Prabowo campaign spokesperson Andre Rosiade said. “Our own internal polls show that Prabowo has already taken the lead, 48 percent versus Jokowi’s 46 percent.”
The Jokowi-Ma’ruf campaign, on the other hand, has responded coolly to the Kompas poll, insisting that it only confirmed the other political surveys that the president would win big.
Its spokesperson, Arya Sinulingga, acknowledged that Prabowo’s supporters might be more “militant”, saying that was “normal for the losing side”.
“A winning margin of 11 to 13 percent is our minimal expectation,” he said. “So we consider the Kompas poll as showing the most pessimistic scenario for Pak Jokowi’s victory.”
Jokowi running mate Ma’ruf has called on volunteers to work harder in the next month in response to the Kompas poll results.
“Of course, we will push the national and regional campaign teams, but there are also many [volunteer] wings at the grass roots,” he said on Wednesday. “These volunteer wings should also [be used] effectively.”
The SMRC survey puts Jokowi’s electability rate at 57.6 percent against Prabowo’s 31.8 percent.
SMRC program director Sirajuddin Abbas told the Post that he could not comment on the Kompas poll but that the SMRC stood by its poll results.
“Jokowi’s electability has been on an upward trend since December,” he said, citing continued public satisfaction with the government, a good performance in the debates and the failure of personal attacks against Jokowi as reasons for the uptick.
Meanwhile, Firman said that, while the gap between Jokowi and Prabowo remained large even in the Kompas poll, both sides still had a chance of winning.
“Obviously, Jokowi has a higher chance, but I don’t think it would take a miracle for Prabowo to win,” he said. “Both tickets have the potential to win the election.”
