Habibie failing to win over the hearts of the people

JAKARTA (JP): A poll jointly conducted by the University of Indonesia and Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicated shows that in the first three-months of his presidency, B.J. Habibie's policies have failed to win over the hearts of the people.

Only 46.2 percent of the survey respondents found his policies "acceptable" while a mere 1.1 percent said they were "very acceptable".

When asked why people opposed Habibie's leadership, an overwhelming 46.2 percent said it was due to collusion, corruption and nepotism a la Soeharto.

The second reason was also connected to a similar issue, his past history and questionable polices while serving for two decades as state minister of research and technology.

"What is interesting is that only a very few respondents, 0.3 percent, questioned the constitutionality of Habibie's ascendancy to the presidency. This can be interpreted as meaning that so far the general public is being mature and open in judging and allowing Habibie to run his government," the survey's concluding statement read.

The survey, taken between July 13 to July 16, polled 1,000 people throughout Jakarta by telephone.

Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicated primarily served as organizer and sponsor of the survey, which was mainly conducted by the Political Science Lab of the University of Indonesia's School of Political and Social Sciences.

Respondents were evenly divided in gender, with about three- quarters of them aged between 17 and 45.

The respondents' backgrounds varied immensely and included entrepreneurs, employees, civil servants, housewives and students.

Close to 90 percent of the respondents claimed to be indigenous Indonesians.

The questionnaire was not multiple choice but was set out in open question form, the replies to which the surveyors then classified.

Three basic subjects were covered: Habibie's leadership, the figure most suitable to be president, and on Indonesians of Chinese descent who fled in the wake of the May riots.

On the most suitable candidate for the next president, 12.8 percent backed Amien Rais, chairman of the 28-million-strong Muhammadiyah Moslem group.

Next came Megawati Soekarnoputri with 11.3 percent, Habibie with 8.2 percent, former vice president Try Sutrisno 5.2 percent and senior economist Emil Salim with 3 percent.

When asked about ethnic Chinese-Indonesians who had fled abroad, 73 percent said they should return home while 17 percent said they should not.

Eep Syaefullah Fatah, head of the school's research and development department, told journalists when he announced the results of the survey that a majority of those who said fleeing ethnic Chinese should not return doubted the sense of nationalism and their contributions to the country.

Despite the mid-rating received by Habibie, Eep said the incumbent still had a chance to win next year's presidential election if he could shed his image of a Soeharto crony.

Soegeng, a former Golkar legislator who switched allegiance to the PDI in 1992, said the survey aimed at building a communication bridge about current political issues between decisionmakers and the people.

"I will introduce polls up to 30 times depending on the issues. I want to help identify the people's aspirations and to help the government create policies that accommodate these aspirations," he said.

He said he guaranteed the validity of the survey, adding that it had less than a 5 percent error margin. (ivy)