Surveys show Susilo top presidential candidate

Surveys show Susilo top presidential candidate

Kurniawan Hari and A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Democratic Party's cofounder Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is
twice as likely to become Indonesia's next leader than current
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, according to findings of two
surveys.

The separate surveys were conducted by the Jakarta-based
Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) and London-based Taylor Nelson
Sofres (TNS) together with its Jakarta's partner, the National
Leadership Center (NLC).

"This year will be the end of Megawati's era if she does not
make a significant jump in popularity (before the July 5 direct
presidential election)," executive director of the Indonesian
Survey Institute (LSI) Denny JA said.

Denny said the survey, which involved 2,760 respondents in 32
provinces, placed Megawati second with 17.4 percent. Leader of
the National Mandate Party (PAN) Amien Rais and leader of the
Golkar Party Akbar Tandjung ranked third and fourth place with
9.9 percent and 8.4 percent respectively.

Denny said the survey with a margin of error of around 2
percent showed that Susilo was still preferred regardless of
Megawati's vice presidential candidates, namely Akbar or chairman
of the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)
Hasyim Muzadi.

"It shows that in the presidential election, the candidate
influences voters more, despite the number of votes secured by
political parties in the legislative elections," he said.

As of late Tuesday with nearly 85 million votes (over 65
percent of valid votes) counted, Golkar remained in first place
in the popular vote with 20.76 percent of votes, followed by PDI-
P with just under 20 percent so far, while the Democratic Party
was currently running in fifth with about 6.5 percent.

It was Denny's opinion that Susilo, from a new party, would do
well to make a coalition with Golkar for his vice presidential
choice. Otherwise, he added, such a new, small party would have
difficulties in government affairs, regardless of how popular its
president was.

The survey released on Tuesday by TNS and NLC showed that from
the surveyed 1,016 respondents in 18 provinces, 28 percent prefer
Susilo.

Megawati ranks a very distant second with 14 percent, Amien
Rais of the National Mandate party (11 percent), former Army
special forces commander Lt.Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto (7
percent), and former president Abdurrahman Wahid (6 percent).

The survey also reveals that most voters want the next
president to be an ex-military man (35 percent). A smaller number
of respondents (26 percent) want a Muslim leader, a "democratic"
leader was third (23 percent), a party leader fourth (11 percent)
and a businessperson fifth (5 percent).

The survey shows that 84 percent of respondents want to see a
new president and the remainder want to see Megawati reelected.

The poll finds that all respondents know Megawati, but only 73
percent of them have a favorable opinion about her. Only 86
percent of respondents know Susilo, but almost all of them (96
percent) have a favorable opinion.

According to a survey conducted in the capitals of all 32
provinces by Kompas daily which was released on Monday, 58
percent of voters prefer a president with a military background.

The survey also revealed only 18 percent of voters would
choose a leader from the family of former president Sukarno and
13.1 percent of people would support a candidate from the family
of former president Soeharto.