Survey finds half of voters undecided

JAKARTA (JP): Sixty percent of Indonesia's eligible voters are still undecided about which party to vote for in the upcoming general election according to the results of an opinion poll announced on Friday.

The survey, jointly conducted by the University of Indonesia's (UI) School of Social and Political Sciences and the consulting firm Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicated, asked 4,925 eligible voters in nine cities which party they would vote for if the election was held today.

More than 44 percent replied "don't know", and an additional 16 percent answered "can't respond".

"We see a tendency for people to wait for further developments before making their minds up," Valina Singka Subekti, director of the university's political laboratory which processed the survey, explained when presenting the results.

The survey, conducted by phone between Aug. 5 and Aug. 11, had 1,950 respondents who had decided which party they would vote for. This group said they planned to share their votes among 10 different parties.

The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headed by Megawati Soekarnoputri topped the list, with Golkar a distant second and Amien Rais' People's Mandate Party (PAN) in third.

At the time of the survey, besides the three parties which had been allowed to contest elections under the regime of former president Soeharto, there were around 70 newly established political parties. As of this week that number had swollen to more than 200, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The government of President B.J. Habibie has set the general election for June 7 and the House of Representatives is currently rushing to complete deliberations of new political legislation, including a new electoral law.

While there was widespread agreement that the election should be opened to more than the three political parties sanctioned by the Soeharto regime, the emergence of more than 200 new parties has sowed confusion and fear.

In the opinion poll, nearly 59 percent of respondents said that the ideal number of political parties to reflect the diversity of the nation would be between four and 10.

"We found that people want fewer political parties (than there are now)," Valina said.

He added, "The people are fond of political freedom but sick of the way parties mobilize the masses."

The majority of the respondents said they opposed the past practice of mobilizing the masses during election campaigns, and 70 percent agreed that parties should be barred from using religion as their ideological bases.

The survey polled randomly selected people over 17 years of age in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Banda Aceh, Medan, Denpasar, Kupang, Pontianak and Ujungpandang. The poll has a sampling error of 0.4 percent.

The respondents are almost divided equally between the two sexes, and more than 77 percent are between the ages of 17 and 45. Muslims make up 59 percent of the respondents, followed by Protestants (17.5 percent) and Roman Catholics (12 percent). The remaining respondents are Hindus, Buddhists and other faiths.

In terms of occupation, housewives and private sector workers make up 23 and 22 percent of the respondents respectively. They are followed by entrepreneurs, students, civil servants, professionals and retired people.

When asked about what draws them to a political party, 54 percent said the party's platform and nearly 18 percent cited the leader of the party. The party's ideology came next with 11 percent, followed by the party's widespread support with 8 percent.

"People are more responsive to political changes. They are more informed and selective in making their choices," Valina said.

When asked if Golkar could win the election, 34 percent responded "not likely", 21 percent said they "didn't know", 19 percent said they "doubted it" and another 19 percent responded "it's possible". Only 2 percent said Golkar could "very possibly" win.

The survey team includes UI's political observers Maswadi Rauf, Isbodroini Sujanto, Dwi Susanto, F. Iriani Yudhoyoko, Valina Singka Subekti and Eep Saefulloh Fatah.

The team predicted that only eight political parties would be seriously considered by voters and win a significant percentage of the vote in the general election.

These eight are Golkar, the United Development Party, Megawati Soekarnoputri's PDI, the PDI faction led by Budi Hardjono, Amien Rais's PAN, the Nahdlatul Ulama's Nation's Awakening Party, the Justice Party and the Crescent and Star Party.

The team, however, is unclear about Golkar's chances in the election.

"We have to admit that Golkar is the party most ready to contest the election. People will also have to be ready if... Golkar wins," Maswadi warned. (edt)