Jakarta. Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo is leading by double digits over two main contenders for the 2024 presidential election, according to a new survey.

In a hypothetical election involving the top three contenders, Ganjar will receive 36.3 percent of the votes, as opposed to 24.2 percent for former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan and 23.2 percent for Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, according to a survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute, or LSI, released on Sunday.

However, Ganjar still needs 14 more points to prevent the election from going to a runoff as an elected president needs an absolute majority of support.

Ganjar owes his increasing popularity to President Joko Widodo’s soaring approval rating as both share the same strongholds of supporters, LSI Director Djayadi Hanan told a news conference in Jakarta. 

Like the president, Ganjar is also a politician of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which has yet to name a candidate for the 2024 election.

"As for Prabowo and Anies, both are equally competitive and have outperformed each other throughout January," Djayadi said.

Prabowo gets more votes than Anies in a simulated election involving 10 contenders – 19.4 percent against 16.5 percent, according to the survey. Under this scenario, Ganjar remains the most favorite candidate with 29.2 percent of the votes.

West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil received 8.7 percent of the votes while none of the remaining six names gets 5 percent in the LSI survey.

The survey was conducted by telephone calls to 1,221 respondents with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points, LSI said.

Political Parties
If the general elections were held today, the PDI-P would win 21.9 percent of the votes to retain the lead in the House of Representatives, according to the survey.

Prabowo’s Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) would trail in a distant second with 12.1 percent. Interestingly, the Democratic Party would take over third place from the Golkar Party, 7.1 percent against 6.7 percent.

"It’s worth noting that around 27 percent of respondents have not decided on their pick for political parties. Normally at this point in time, the level of undecided voters was below 20 percent," Djayadi said.