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.