Political parties unpopular with public

Political parties unpopular with public

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Major political parties contesting the 2004 general election have
failed to woo support from poor people living in urban areas,
according to a recent poll.

The survey, carried out by the Institute for Business Ethics
Development Studies (LSPEU) on 2,995 respondents at random in six
major cities, revealed that 26 percent were still thinking about
the party they would vote for and 32 percent declined to disclose
their preference.

"This means that political parties are unpopular among poor
people in urban areas. The people have no enthusiasm for the
parties," LSPEU director Fachry Ali told a media conference here
on Wednesday.

Poor people were defined as those whose monthly expenditure
was below Rp 1 million (US$119).

The lack of popularity was confirmed by the low percentage of
respondents favoring any particular party.

Among the unpopular parties, the Golkar Party ranked first
with support from 10.8 percent of respondents, followed by
President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), with 7.4 percent.

The National Awakening Party (PKB), National Mandate Party
(PAN) and Vice President Hamzah Haz' United Development Party
(PPP) came third, fourth and fifth respectively.

There was a significant change in party preference compared
with the 1999 election, as 24.7 percent of respondents admitted
to voting for PDI Perjuangan, 12.2 percent Golkar, 8.6 percent
PKB, 6.8 percent PPP and 4.7 percent Muslim-based PPP.

Preference for parties was mostly influenced by respondents'
assessment of party achievement (46.4 percent), followed by the
party leadership factor (10.6 percent) and party programs and
platforms (10.3 percent).

"Despite their economic status, the public are well informed
about the performance of the political parties, Fachry said,
adding that people could easily recall the activities of
political parties from what they had seen on TV.

The survey showed that 78.6 percent of respondents obtained
information on the parties from TV. Respondents who had access to
dailies, magazines, tabloids, or radio were less than nine
percent on average.

The poll was carried out between Aug. 10 and Aug. 30 in
Jakarta, Serang, Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya, all
cities in Java. In each city, 500 people were targeted at random
for their responses.

The sampling error in the survey was plus or minus 1.91
percent, with confidence of 0.95 percent.

Fachry said Java was chosen because most of the country's
population lives on the island.

He added that poor people were targeted as respondents because
they made up the majority of the country's population.

He said five more surveys would be carried out with the same
respondents ahead of the April 2004 election to determine what
patterns might emerge regarding their political preferences.