Megawati, Susilo top survey of presidential possibles
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A recent survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) shows that President Megawati Soekarnoputri and Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono are the most favored figures for the next president.
Of the total of 2,240 respondents, 17.7 percent opted for Megawati, chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), while another 11.8 percent threw their support behind Susilo.
House Speaker Akbar Tandjung, former president Abdurrahman Wahid, Vice President Hamzah Haz, and People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais were supported by 8 percent, 7.9 percent, 7.8 percent, and 7.3 percent of respondents respectively.
Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra ranked seventh with 6.8 percent.
Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid and Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla received 5.5 percent and 2.7 percent of support respectively.
However, most respondents (19.6 percent) declined to name their preference.
"The next election could be the end of Amien Rais' political career. He once said he would return to campus should he fail to be elected president next year," LSI researcher Denny JA told a press conference here on Wednesday.
The emergence of Susilo as a possible winner, with the second major show of support, was somewhat surprising as he is the only figure in the survey who does not belong to any political party.
Megawati chairs PDI Perjuangan, the country's largest party, Akbar chairs Golkar Party, and Hamzah chairs the United Development Party (PPP).
Although Abdurrahman does not chair the National Awakening Party (PKB), he is an influential figure in the fourth largest party.
Amien and Yusril are chairmen of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Crescent Star Party (PBB) respectively.
"Susilo's position as the coordinating minister for political and security affairs has widened his fame. Besides, he has the capability to communicate with the public," Denny said.
Fellow researcher, Saiful Mujani, added that a series of his own surveys since 1999 illustrated that Susilo's popularity had been increasing with time.
For the first time in history, Indonesia will have a direct presidential election next year. Due to many political parties nominating presidential candidates, it will be hard for each candidate to win a simple majority in the first round of the election.
This will prompt two presidential aspirants obtaining the largest number of votes to contest the run-off.
The survey also shows that Megawati would gain the most votes in the second-round election if her rival is one of Abdurrahman, Akbar, Kalla, Nurcholish, Yusril, or Amien.
However, if Megawati's contender in the second-round election is Hamzah or Susilo, the distribution of votes will be more balanced.
Denny also revealed that none of the 19 figures joining the Golkar Party Convention had received significant support in the survey. However, Golkar could be "the king maker" in next year's election by nominating popular candidates.
The survey was conducted from Aug. 1 to Aug. 20 nationwide excluding the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. A total of 2,240 respondents were chosen with multistage random sampling.
The proportion of respondents living in urban and rural areas was 42 percent and 58 percent respectively. The proportion of female and male respondents was fifty-fifty.
The margin of error of the survey was +/- 3 percent on the reliability rate of 0.05. Respondents were directly interviewed in this survey.
The survey was funded by the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA).