The pollsters based their rebuttals on current public opinion surveys that found that a majority of people were, instead, against the idea.

Indikator Politik Indonesia executive director Burhanuddin Muhtadi said the organization’s survey in December of last year, which polled around 2,000 people, found that 67.2 percent of respondents wanted the presidential election to be held as scheduled in 2024.

This was consistent with its two previous surveys in November and September, which found that 69.9 percent and 64.7 percent of respondents wanted the election to go on as planned.

“Our data has been consistent from September until December. If anything, support [for a term extension for Jokowi] has gone down from September,” Burhanuddin said during a public discussion on Friday.

Indikator Politik has yet to conduct a subsequent study to determine whether the trend has continued into 2022, but Burhanuddin cited a survey taken last month by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) that found that more than half of the total 1,200 respondents opposed the idea of delaying the 2024 elections.

Muhaimin and Luhut’s recent claims, which were based on undisclosed findings from “big data analysis”, have added to the ongoing controversy over recent proposals that Jokowi’s presidential tenure be extended. Last year, election organizers and policymakers repeatedly failed to set election dates as prominent figures floated the idea of a postponement.

Muhaimin claimed in late February that 60 percent of 100 million Indonesian social media users supported the postponement of the 2024 presidential election – a move that could effectively extend Jokowi’s final term.

Luhut, meanwhile, claimed in mid-March that he was aware of “big data” on 110 million Indonesian social media users that showed they wanted Jokowi’s term to be extended.

However, a September survey by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) found that 84 percent of 980 respondents wanted the two-term limit for the president stipulated by the Constitution to be maintained.

Most recently, a poll by Kompas daily revealed similar sentiments, with more than 60 percent of respondents saying they wanted to see the upcoming election held as scheduled.

Burhanuddin said that with public opinion surveys consistently debunking claims that the public would support Jokowi’s term extension, he was not surprised that politicians had resorted to more amorphous claims of “big data”.

Diyauddin of Lab 45, a research group specializing in big data analysis and led by former Cabinet secretary and current National Resilience Institute head Andi Widjajanto, said it was nearly impossible that more than 100 million social media accounts were active in conversations about a presidential term extension.

Diyauddin said that two previous Lab 45 big data studies on the topic had found only about 10,000 accounts engaged in social media conversations about potential election delays and presidential term extensions.

The first analysis, which focused on the topic of a longer term in office for Jokowi, was conducted in June of last year and found almost unanimous public opposition to the term extension proposal. The second one, which focused on the election delay that would effectively extend Jokowi’s term, was conducted in February of this year and found that a majority of social media users were against the proposal.

“Even our biggest analysis, which was regarding [social media conversations] on COVID-19,

only surveyed 4 million accounts […]. I’m not sure where [these politicians] came up with 100 million accounts,” Diyauddin said during Friday’s event.

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