Jakarta. A hypothetical presidential race between Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto shows that they are statistically tied, according to a new survey released on Sunday.

Ganjar, who has been nominated by the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), has a razor-thin lead over Prabowo, whose Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) has yet to formally announce his candidacy pending a coalition agreement, according to the survey by the Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC).

"In the hypothetical head-to-head race, Ganjar Pranowo received 42.2 percent of support as opposed to Prabowo Subianto’s 41.9 percent. This indicates that both men tie with each other statistically,” SMRC Research Director Deni Irvani said in a statement.

Conducted from May 2-5, the SMRC survey involved 925 well-informed voters mostly in urban areas. It has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points, the pollster said.

Despite the tiny margin, Sunday’s results marked an important progress for Ganjar who was trailing Prabowo in the same surveys between March and April.

"Following the PDI-P declaration on their pick for Ganjar, he started to gain the edge over Prabowo and even rise to the top come May," Deni said.

Having participated in the last two presidential elections, Prabowo is known by more voters than Ganjar. The survey indicated that 94 percent of voters know Prabowo, compared to 85 percent for Ganjar.

Among voters who know both candidates, Ganjar extends his lead to 46.4 percent versus Prabowo’s 38.8 percent, in addition to 14.8 percent of voters who remain undecided.

When Anies Baswedan is added to the race, the former Jakarta governor was ranked third, trailing by up to 13 percentage points, Deni said.

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