Jakarta. Following two rounds of presidential and vice-presidential debates, presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming pair extended their lead in the latest survey published on Tuesday. They are followed by Ganjar Pranowo-Mohammad Mahfud MD and Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar.

Burhanuddin Muhtadi, the lead researcher at Indikator Politik, noted that compared to the late November survey, the electability of Prabowo-Gibran has risen from 45.6 percent to 46.7 percent. In contrast, their rivals have experienced a decline in their electability levels.

"We haven't found any signs of a one-round election because the electability of Prabowo-Gibran is still below 50%. We also can't predict who will compete with Prabowo-Gibran in the runoff," said Burhanuddin.

Burhanuddin said that the electability of Anies-Muhaimin is 21 percent, and that of Ganjar-Mahfud is 24.5 percent. "With a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points, we are uncertain about who is in the lead between Anies and Ganjar," he added.

The survey was conducted through telephone interviews on December 23-24. A total of 1,217 respondents were selected as samples using a combination of the random digital dialing (RDD) method for 265 respondents and double sampling for 952 respondents. 

According to Burhanuddin, the presidential and vice-presidential debates, which were aired on national television on Dec. 12 and 22, have minimal electoral effects as viewers typically have established political preferences before tuning in.

"Aggregatedly, the debates do not significantly change the electoral map. Compared to the pre-debate levels, the distribution of support for presidential and vice-presidential candidates has not undergone significant changes," said Burhanuddin.

Only 42.3 percent of voters across Indonesia watched the presidential debate on December 12. Among the debate viewers, 35.5 percent considered Anies Baswedan the best, followed by Prabowo at 28.9 percent, and Ganjar at 26.9 percent.

While the vice-presidential debate had fewer viewers than the presidential debate, with only 35.9 percent of respondents. Approximately 56 percent of respondents stated that Gibran, who is President Joko Widodo's eldest son, performed the best, followed by Mahfud at 24.2 percent, and Muhaimin at 12 percent.

"Gibran appears dominant with approval ratings above 50 percent. Perhaps because the audience's expectations for Gibran were too low. This is the beauty of being an underdog," said Burhanuddin.

About 49.2 percent of respondents considered Gibran as the vice-presidential candidate with the best program, and 45.8 percent evaluated Gibran as the vice-presidential candidate who expressed opinions the best.


 

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