There are only two more days until the second and final round of the highly divisive Jakarta gubernatorial election. Many observers predict that not just the future of Jakarta, but all of Indonesia, could be radically different depending on whether incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama or his rival Anies Baswedan emerge victorious. And, based on the results of last round of polls to come out this weekend, the victor is about as far from certain as the outcome of a coin flip.
On Saturday, pollster Charta Politika came out with the results of their survey, which was conducted on April 7-12. Based on the responses of 782 registered voters throughout Jakarta, their survey put Ahok and his Vice Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat at 47.3%, ahead of Anies and his running mate, Sandiaga Uno, who were chosen by 44.8% of voters. The group said the survey has a 3.5% margin of error.
As with so many things in Indonesian politics, survey groups are routinely questioned for having political biases. One political observer, Ziyad Falahi, said Charta’s results “smelled foul” because they put Ahok further in the lead than other recent polls and questioned their methodology.
In response, Yunarto Wijaya, the executive director of Charta Politika, defended the integrity of his group’s survey and said Ziyad “should learn basic math before commenting,” as quoted by Jawa Pos.
Another way to examine Charta’s accuracy is to look at the results of their last survey before the first round of the election. Based on a survey they did from February 3-8, they had Ahok at 39%, Anies at 31.9 %, and Agus Yudhoyono 21.3% with 7.8% undecided.
Based on the final official results from the February 15 election, Ahok received 42.91% of the actual vote, Anies 40.05% and Agus 17.05%.
Note also that the last Charta poll did not take into account any changes caused by the final debate between the three candidates on Feb 10, in which it was generally agreed that Anies performed much more strongly than Agus, which would explain why many undecideds broke for him.
Pollster National Survey Media (Median) also released the results of their latest survey over the weekend, Anies-Sandiaga in the lead with 49% of vote, with Ahok-Djarot close behind at 47.1 percent of the vote. Their poll was conducted April 13–14 and is based on 550 respondents with a 4.2% margin of error.
The third pollster, Indikator, which conducted its survey with 495 respondents, also put Anies-Sandiaga slightly ahead, 48.2% to Ahok-Djarot’s 47.4%, with a 4.5% margin of error.
The only thing that seems clear is that all of the polls are within the margin of error, meaning that the results of Wednesday’s election could depend heavily on voter turnout – and luck.
