Voters don't know candidates: Survey
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Most voters know how to properly perforate their ballot papers, but they remain so indifferent to the candidates that many of them are likely to vote for anybody, a survey reveals.
The survey conducted by the Center for the Study of Development and Democracy (Cesda) found that some 70 percent of voters knew they had to perforate both the symbol of their preferred political party and the name of one of its candidates during the polls on April 5.
Only 21 percent of respondents still did not know how to properly perforate the ballot papers.
Of the respondents who said they did know how to properly perforate the papers, 26 percent of them said they would vote for any candidate, 46 percent said they would only perforate the party symbol and 7 percent said they would not make any perforation.
"The reason is because most respondents, around 59 percent, say they do not recognize the legislative candidates," Cesda researcher Rahadi T. Wiratama told reporters on Thursday.
Due to their limited knowledge on the backgrounds and track records of the legislative candidates, some 52 percent of the respondents said they were afraid of voting for candidates who did not live up their expectations of probity.
Some 10 percent of the voters said they would not vote for candidates who had been involved in criminal activity, while 8 percent opposed candidates with a record of involvement in money politics and rights violations.
Cesda conducted the survey between March 5 and March 18. The 1,459 respondents were selected through the purposive sampling method in 69 electoral districts in Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali/Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and Papua.
More than 60 percent of the respondents lived in villages.
The margin of error in the survey is approximately 3 percent.
Last year, a survey conducted by the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) revealed that more than half of the country's 145 million eligible voters did not know how to perforate the ballot papers properly.
Another survey by the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) and the Polling Center in February this year disclosed that 60 percent of respondents would only perforate party symbols, while only 19 percent would perforate both the party symbols and the names of their candidates of choice as required by electoral law.
Public skepticism as to the outcome of this year's legislative and presidential elections was also found by the Cesda survey, with some 43 percent of the respondents saying the elections would not affect their lives.
Only 33 percent of the respondents believed the newly elected legislators and president would lead the country to a better future.
Another Cesda researcher, Wildan Pramudya, said the skepticism was related to the fact that some 60 percent of the respondents were "dissatisfied" with the performance of the legislators elected in 1999.
"Therefore, most of them have yet to decide on which political party they will vote for," he said.
Some 14 percent of the respondents said they would vote for the Golkar Party, 9 percent for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and 4 percent for the National Mandate Party (PAN).