We are still quite a bit aways from the official start of the 2017 Jakarta governor’s race, but those opposed to the re-election bid of Jakarta’s current leader, Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, are already doing their best to take him down. They’ve tried to change the rules to make it harder for him to run as an independent candidate, they’ve tried to use racist attacks and they’ve even tried to link him to corruption scandals.
But none of it seems to be sticking. According to the results new survey by the Populi Center, Ahok’s electability rating is up (although only slightly) amongst Jakartans.
A researcher from the Populi Center, Nona Evita, told Tempo, “An interesting finding of the survey is that, though he has been buffeted by controversy and scandal, the electability of Governor Ahok is up slightly compared to February.”
According to Populi’s April survey, the percentage of people who said they would vote for Ahok in 2017 is 50.8%, up from 49.5% in February. The survey involved 400 randomly chosen respondents throughout Jakarta.
The survey was conducted from April 15 to 21, a time during which Ahok’s name was often in the news in relation to the Sumber Waras Hospital land purchase corruption case. He was questioned by the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) for his alleged involvement in the case, but the KPK decided that there was no evidence the governor had acted inappropriately in the matter.
However, we should note that another survey group, the Survey Institute and Study Group on Public Opinion in Indonesia (Kedai KOPI) did a similar survey that found that Ahok’s electability had fallen slightly post his questioning by the KPK. In March, their survey found Ahok has a 51.8% electability rating while in April that rating had fallen to 45.5%.
