Quick count results are just starting to come in while this is being written, but some prognostications (of the heavily biased kind) about the winners of today’s Jakarta election have already been made.
Although the last round of polls had the candidates in a statistical dead heat, with each showing the percentage of votes split between the incumbents, Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Vice Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat, and their rivals, Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno, within the margin of error, the majority of polls still gave Anies-Sandiaga at least a superficial lead.
But whatever perceptual lead the challengers might have in those polls, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the ruling party of President Joko Widodo and backers of Ahok-Djarot, are sure that the incumbents will get the win today.
PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto says those polls were weighted to give Anies-Sandiaga an edge but said that his party had done more comprehensive surveys, based on polling institutes with more reliable methodology, that showed Ahok-Djarot will win by a small but clear margin.
“There has been a trend of Pak Basuki and Pak Djarot continuing to increase [in the last few polls], while the trend of the other pair has tended to decline,” Hasto said as quoted by Merdeka today. “We, therefore, remain optimistic of reaching a target of at least 52.4%.”
Indeed, while their results have varied, almost all recent polls have shown Ahok-Djarot’s numbers rise over the last month while Anies-Sandiaga have stagnated or decreased slightly.
Meanwhile, Prabowo Subianto, the former general and presidential candidate, who chairs the powerful Gerindra party (which is backing Anies-Sandiaga), also said he thought his side would prevail today, though he did not predict by what percentage and seemed less certain with his call.
“I suppose I’m optimistic,” Prabowo said at Gerindra Party HQ in Ragunan, South Jakarta, this morning as quoted by Kompas. He said that field reports from the campaign and Gerindra party officials said things were looking good for their candidate.
We’ll soon find out which of them was right.
