Joko’s approval dips to 59.6pc
JAKARTA: President Joko Widodo’s approval rating fell as the coronavirus continues to tear through the nation, landing it with some of the worst daily Covid-19 death tolls in the world.
About 59.6 per cent of respondents were satisfied with his handling of the pandemic, according to a survey by Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI). In December, the figure stood at 68.9 per cent.
“Many still believe that the president can end this pandemic, but that trust level has declined, especially in the past four months,” LSI said in the statement on Sunday.
As the Delta variant spreads throughout Indonesia, at least 650 people have died at home while self-isolating because they couldn’t get admitted to hospitals, according to crowdsourcing platform LaporCovid19.
People are divided in their opinions about whether the government should prioritise health over the economy, and more people are concerned about the state of the economy now than they were in September, LSI said.
Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is racing against time to inoculate more than 180 million people against Covid-19 to reach herd immunity. About 84.9 per cent support the campaign and 68.6 per cent believed vaccines could help prevent the illness, according to the LSI survey.
Fear of side effects is the main reason for 36.4 per cent of respondents who don’t want to get vaccinated.
More than 57 million vaccinations have been given out in Indonesia, enough to cover 11 per cent of its population, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker.
Almost 83 per cent of respondents said they had not received their shots, according to the LSI survey.
The survey, conducted from March to June, involved 1,200 respondents across the nation and was done via phone interviews, with a margin of error of +/- 2.88 per cent, according to the institute.