However, the poll from Litbang Kompas, the research arm of Kompas daily, showed that the second-place Gerindra Party was closing the electability gap and that the PDI-P had lost ground in the “favorability” metric.

Conducted from April 29 to May 10, roughly a week after Ganjar’s nomination, the survey polled 1,200 respondents from across the country on which party they would vote for and whether they were favorably disposed toward particular parties.

Some 23.3 percent of respondents said they would vote for the PDI-P if the legislative election were held today, with the party diverging little from the 22.9 percent rating it had in January. Meanwhile, Gerindra saw a sizable bump in the same metric, from 14.3 percent in January to 18.6 percent in May.

Gerindra’s rising electability is coupled with the improving prospects of Gerindra chairman Prabowo Subianto in the 2024 presidential race. On Friday, several supporter groups from Central Java and East Java that had supported President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Surakarta Mayor Gibran Rakubuming Raka, the President’s eldest son, declared their support for the defense minister.

Both the President and Gibran are members of the PDI-P, and the expectation is that their supporters will be inclined to vote for Ganjar, the party’s candidate.

“We’re volunteers. We’re not members of any party. [...] The grassroots supporters, after this meeting in Surakarta, are throwing their support behind Pak Prabowo," Kuat Hermawan, a member of a Gibran supporter group, said on Friday, as quoted by Kompas.

While the PDI-P maintained its lead over Gerindra in the legislative race, it lost significant ground in favorability. Only 42.8 percent of voters said they were favorably disposed toward the PDI-P, down from 49.1 percent in January. The Democratic Party was the most favorable political party in the poll, with 56.5 percent of respondents saying they had a positive perception of the party.

Ganjar effect?

The PDI-P’s seemingly contradictory low favorability rating and high electability rating were partially the result of its endorsement of the very popular Ganjar, who is currently leading most surveys of presidential candidates.

After FIFA revoked Indonesia’s right to host the 2023 Under-20 World Cup, much of the public blamed the PDI-P and several of its members, including Ganjar, for publicly refusing to allow the Israeli national team to participate. Israel was one of 24 nations that had qualified for the youth soccer tournament, and it was this pushback that reportedly led FIFA to renounce Indonesia as host.

Meanwhile, an opinion poll from Indikator Politik Indonesia from last week showed that support for the PDI-P dropped considerably after Indonesia lost its host status, from 18.8 percent electability in March to 15.9 percent in April.

After PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri formally announced the nomination of Ganjar on April 21, however, the party’s electability rating bounced back even higher to 20 percent. The temporary dip in support for the party corresponded with a temporary rise in undecided voters.

“After Ganjar’s official nomination, and as people started to move on from the cancellation of the U-20 World Cup in Indonesia, a number of undecided voters went back to supporting the PDI-P,” Indikator executive director Burhanuddin Muhtadi said last week.

Aside from Ganjar, electoral support for the PDI-P is also closely tied to support for Jokowi. Litbang Kompas found that 88.9 percent of current PDI-P supporters had voted for Jokowi in 2019, and 41.1 percent said they would go along with whomever he endorsed to win in 2024.

With his second term set to end in 2024, Jokowi is constitutionally barred from running for a third time. However, with approval ratings for the current administration at 70.1 percent, the President’s influence will continue to shape voters’ choices in 2024, the authors of the Litbang Kompas study predicted.

The survey results come against the backdrop of Gibran being summoned by the PDI-P leadership on Monday, reportedly in response to his recent meeting with Prabowo, who is to compete with Ganjar for the top job next year.

Analysts have read into the incident as a symbolic show of force by the ruling party over Gibran, after his own supporter group switched sides from Ganjar to Prabowo. This has led many to believe that a rift was growing between Jokowi and Megawati, which PDI-P denies.