Susilo's popularity dips: LSI
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Only three days before the presidential election runoff, an opinion poll on Friday showed a slight dip in the popularity of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, but that he was still likely to beat Megawati Soekarnoputri by a landslide.
In its latest "quick" survey conducted after the last day of the three-day campaign on Thursday, the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) found that 52.6 percent of respondents preferred Susilo as president for the 2004/2009 term to Megawati, who enjoyed the support from 34.3 percent of the respondents.
The survey also found that 13.1 percent of respondents remained undecided or would not participate in the poll.
"In comparison with our previous survey between Sept. 10 and Sept. 20, the support for Susilo has remained stable, while the level of support for Megawati has increased," the survey report said.
The three-day campaign, marked mostly by intensive media campaigning and televised dialogs, had a little impact on the preferences of voters, the survey said.
In a previous survey published on Tuesday, the LSI found that 61.3 percent of respondents would vote for Susilo as against 32.7 percent for Megawati.
During the "quick" survey, the LSI interviewed 2,760 respondents across the country's 32 provinces. The margin of error is 2 percent.
The survey predicted that little would change over the next three days, as 75.2 percent of respondents said it was most unlikely that they would change their preferences, while another 16.8 percent said it was unlikely they would change their views.
As in its previous surveys, the LSI underscored the inability of the political parties to mobilize support for the candidates.
Megawati has the backing of her own Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party and some other major parties.
The PDI-P and Golkar are normally thought off as having effective control over their rank-and-file down to the village level.
The election results could also turn out different from the scenario predicted by the polls as Megawati, in her capacity as the incumbent president, still wields power over the state bureaucracy.
As indicated by the experience of past polls, the pollsters may also be overestimating the support that Susilo will garner. In the first round of the presidential election, the pollsters, including the LSI, predicted that Susilo would take over 40 percent of the vote.
The official results announced by the General Elections Commission (KPU), however, gave Susilo only 33 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, another quick survey conducted by the People's Voter Education Network (JPPR) found that 75 percent of respondents were concerned about the possibility of state officials taking sides in the election runoff.
The JPPR interviewed 20 district coordinators of over 45,000 observers in nine provinces who are responsible for collecting information on the polls.