Widodo maintains high approval, new poll confirms

JAKARTA: A fresh survey has confirmed that the approval rating of Indonesian President Joko Widodo is still high, showing nearly 70% satisfaction with how the country is being run, despite ongoing negative campaigns by his opponents.

The level of public satisfaction with his administration, now approaching the end of its third year, stood at 68.3% according to the survey conducted from Sept 17-24 by pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia.

“Since April 2016, Widodo’s approval ratings have been stable at above 60%,” the survey said.

The approval rating confirmed the results of two other polls conducted recently.

A survey last month by an Indonesian thinktank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, also showed his approval rating at 68.3%, while another survey published last week by pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting put it at 68%.

The latest poll was based on face-to-face interviews of 1,220 people, conducted from Sept 17-24 throughout the country.

According to the survey, the level of confidence in September over the president’s ability to lead the country was 72.6%, holding steady above the 70% mark as it has since March 2016.

Mr Widodo’s performance was considered good particularly in building infrastructure — including in the leastdeveloped eastern part of the country that had been neglected by previous administrations — as well as in guaranteeing equal access to education and health services for Indonesian citizens and in enforcing tough measures against terrorism and drug trafficking, the survey revealed.

The study also showed that Mr Widodo’s electability rose from 54.9% in August 2016 to 58.8% in September of this year, in contrast to his main rival, 2014 presidential runner-up Prabowo Subianto, whose corresponding figure remained flat at around 31%.

Indikator’s Executive Director Burhanuddin Muhtadi stressed, however, that although Mr Prabowo’s electability was still much lower than Mr Widodo’s, it should be noted that the number has held despite the former army general not conducting any systematic political campaigning for the past three years.

“It proves that the basis of Prabowo’s loyalists is very strong,” Mr Burhanuddin said.

Ahead of the 2019 presidential election, negative campaigns against Mr Widodo have been launched by his political opponents hoping to prevent his re-election.

Rumours circulated in apparent attempts to damage Mr Widodo have included labeling him a former Catholic and linking him to the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party, which is blamed for launching an aborted coup in 1965, by purported family connections to Chinese communism.

According to the survey, however, the majority of respondents did not believe such claims.