After winning the 2014 presidential election on a wave of populist and grassroots support, Joko Widodo faced numerous political challenges which severely hurt his popularity within his first six months in office.
But since then, President Jokowi’s renewed focus on domestic issues such as infrastructure (along with the occasional nationalist stand on international issues like the death penalty for drug traffickers and the South China Seas) seems to have helped him regain the people’s favor.
A new survey by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that public confidence in not only Jokowi but the entire government is on the rise in most categories.
According to the CSIS survey results, satisfaction in Jokowi’s performance rose from 50.6 percent in October 2015 to 66.6 percent in August 2016. Public satisfaction toward Parliament rose to 41.9%, up from 29.2% in 2015.
Public satisfaction in the government’s handling of economic, legal, political, and maritime issues were also up significantly in the last year, particularly in the area of maritime policy (likely due to the government’s popular hardline stance on sinking foreign fishing boats caught trespassing in Indonesian waters).
CSIS researcher Arya Fernandes told Tempo that perceptions of the president improved strongly in certain demographics, including low-income communities, rural communities outside of Java, and men.
The CSIS survey was conducted from August 8 to 15. The survey was conducted in 34 provinces and has a margin of error of 3.1 percent with a 95 percent confidence level.
