Another day, another survey for next year’s presidential election. The main takeaway from all of them in aggregate is that the Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno ticket trail far behind President Joko Widodo and his running mate Ma’ruf Amin.
The latest poll, released today by Kompas’ Research and Development (Litbang) department, shows Jokowi-Ma’ruf chosen by 52.6% of the survey’s 1,200 respondents, nearly 20 points ahead of Prabowo-Sandiaga with 32.7%. The remaining 14.7% of respondents said they were undecided.
Based on Kompas’ assessment of the numbers, Prabowo-Sandiaga have a very slim chance of catching up.
“Even if all of the 14.7% of respondents [who abstained] picked Prabowo-Sandiaga, by simple math, Jokowi-Ma’ruf still have a slight lead,” Kompas’ Bambang Setiawan said.
But if the survey’s 2.8% margin of error were to entirely work in the favor of Prabowo-Sandiaga, then there is a chance the pair could overtake Jokowi-Ma’ruf, provided most, if not all, of the 14.7% of those who abstained picked the opposition leader and the former Jakarta vice governor.
Furthermore, the survey indicated that 30.7% of respondents who picked Jokowi-Ma’ruf could still be swayed to switch to the other side. But that is still lower than the 34.2% of those who picked Prabowo-Sandiaga who said they aren’t still totally convinced by the ticket.
Kompas’ survey was carried out between Sept. 21-Oct. 5, with respondents picked randomly from all 34 provinces.
Previous surveys from major pollster showed similar numbers. The first survey after both candidate pairs’ official nominations in August was carried out by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) and their poll put Jokowi-Ma’ruf above their rivals with 52.2% compared to 29.5%. Another survey in September by Indikator Politik Indonesia indicated a decrease in undecideds, with Jokowi-Ma’ruf scoring even higher at 57.7% compared to Prabowo-Sandiaga at 32.3%.
While political observers have noted that Prabowo-Sandiaga are mainly focusing their campaign on economic reforms, their credibility took a hit after the huge Ratna Sarumpaet scandal recently.
