Several favorable candidates endorsed to running the 2024 presidential election are not yet sufficient to get support from the voters. a recent poll published by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) on May, 21 – 28 still gave Prabowo to lead the poll as the highest electability rating as a potential candidate for the 2024 presidential election compared with other figures such us Ganjar Pranowo, Anies Baswedan, Ridwan Kamil and Tri Rismaharini.
In the semi open questionaire, the ex 2019 presidential candidate than The Minister of Defense, Prabowo Subianto received 21.5 percent, followed by the Governor of Central Java with 12.6% support, while Anies Baswedan, who is currently the Governor of DKI Jakarta, collected 12 percent.
Even so, according to the Program Manager SMRC, Saidiman Ahmad, the electability of Prabowo fairly stagnant at 20 percent.
“Prabowo has the highest electability, but not much significant change in the last 7 years,” said Saidiman in the discussion of Political Parties and Presidential Candidates; Voters’ behavior After Two Years of the 2019 Election on Sunday, June 13, 2021.
The Governors got received a significant electability vote increase after the 2019 presidential election rather than Prabowo. For instance, Ganjar had received significant support since March-May 2021. Previously, the current Governor of Central Java`just gets the 6,9 percent. Meanwhile, the Governor of West Java, which most favourable person, Ridwan Kamil got 87 percent. “Ridwan is stable in the top five,” he said
Therefore, according to Saidiman, a number of candidates need to immediately evaluate themselves if they want to run in the 2024 presidential election. Because of, he said, the upcoming contest is fairly open compared to the previous 2019 presidential election. At that time, the majority of the public has had one name, namely Joko Widodo, the incumbent. In various surveys, the electability of Jokowi was marked at 40,5 percent. “When there is a situation an incumbent in the contest, the incumbent is already far ahead three years before the vote,” he said.
Saidiman predicts that the upcoming 2024 presidential election will be close similar to the 2014 election compared to 2019. A similar survey conducted three years before the vote or May 2011 showing the result that the Megawati Soekarnoputri electability in that time only got around 20.3 percent, compared with Prabowo just half from Megawati electability there is only 10,2 percent. Meanwhile, the name of Jokowi got rise just later in the top of five survey.
Until the beginning of June 2021, there are political movements carried out by each governor. Meanwhile the Governor of DKI Jakarta, Anies Baswedan, and the Governor of East Java, Khofifah Indar Parawansa met in Ngawi, East Java, the Chairperson of the Democratic Party, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and the Chairperson of the Golkar Party, Airlangga Hartarto, met with the Governor of West Java, Ridwan Kamil. The political movement towards the presidential election was even marked by the meeting of the Chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), Megawati Soekarno Putri, and the Chairperson of the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), Prabowo Subianto at the inauguration of the Soekarno statue at the Ministry of Defense Office a moment ago, on Sunday, 6.June 2021.
According to Saidiman, the presidential candidate market will only be followed by four pairs of candidates. In the upcoming 2024, the PDI-P is the only party that can nominate candidates without forming a coalition with others.
In this latest national perspective, PDIP is claimed to have received an increase in the number of supports of up to 25.9 percent or an increase of 6 percent from 19.3 percent of the 2019 election votes. Followed by Golkar Party and Gerindra which both marked a support rate of 10,9 percent. While PKB, Demokrat, and PKS just stable around 4-9 percent. Meanwhile, the less stable party to pass the parliamentary threshold are Nasdem, PAN, and PPP. “Two years after the 2019 election there was no major change in electoral support for the parties,” He said
According to the Head of the Political Research Center, The Indonesia Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Firman Noor, the result of the surveys are showing evidence that the party’s performance has not improved. So far, the party’s did not represent the public interest because it is managed by an oligarchy culture, so the engagement of the parties with the public is only artificial. This condition, he said, getting worse by various corruption cases affected the party official, including the cases of social assistance corruption that involved the minister from PDI Perjuangan. “The situation three years before the upcoming 2024 election shows that there is a gap in interests between the people and political parties,” he said.
The impact is, the status of democracy in Indonesia is currently stagnating. The organizations such as Freedom House rate Indonesia as a partially free or half-free country. While the Economist Intelligence Unit marked the decline of the democracy index. Indonesia only ranked 64th in the world with a score of 6.3. Although the rating does not go down, Indonesia’s decline score from the previously 6.48. “The gathering of power in the hands of the rulers makes it possible that the power tends to corrupt absolute power corrupts has absolutely happened in Indonesia,” he said.
The Deputy of Chairperson PKB, Jazilul Fawaid revealed that the lack of potential candidates in the presidential election market is an indication to Jokowi to continued for 3 terms. “the people still tend on status quo. There is no new figure to hopes, including the name outside of the political parties,” he said.
Even so, the possibility of Jokowi becoming a presidential candidate for the third time is not an easy matter. The path of Jokowi must be preceded by an amendment to the 1945 constitution. This constitutional amendment must be proposed by at least one-third of the members of the People Consultative Assembly (MPR). This means the need for 237 of the 711 members of the People’s Representative Council (DPR) and the Regional Representative Council (DPD). Meanwhile, the person expected to run for the third term still not showing any interest in running again. In the last mids of March, President Jokowi rejected the discourse on a third term and claimed he would comply with the maximum limit of two terms as it wrote in the 1945 Constitutional Law. “This government is running perpendicular to the constitution,” said Jokowi at that time.
In this case, the SMRC national survey on public attitudes towards the amendments showed that 74 percent of the people did not want the presidential term to be extended. “Those who want the presidential term to be changed are only 13 percent and those who don’t have an attitude are 13 percent,” said a release submitted by SMRC, Sunday, June 20 2021.
However, the public’s refusal to this change in the presidential term is decline when the name Jokowi juxtaposed in the question. The Respondent’s who answer disagrees to 52,9 percent, while they agree as much as 40,2 percent.
“This means that there is a Jokowi effect,” said SMRC reference to the survey result conducted with the field interview method on May 21-28 2021. The sampling harvested random (multistage random sampling) of the 1220 respondents. In this survey, the response rate (respondents who can be interviewed validly) is 1072 or 88 percent. The margin of error is ± 3.05 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
Jazilul believes that the current political situation will change when closer to the next 2024 presidential election. The PKB according to Jazilul will try to propose the best cadre in that seasonal contest. This opportunity will be more open if the lawmaker agrees to decrease the presidential threshold below 20 percent. PKB, according to him doesn’t want to lose the coat-tail effect. If reflection with the previous 2019 election, the endorser political parties of the President and the Vice President get the increased party’s vote. “The current challenge for the party is to find its cadre who are ready to run to be a presidential candidate or the vice,” he said.
Inline with Jazilul, The Deputy of DPP Democratic Party, Benny K. Harman assess the current presidential threshold is preventing the emergence of an alternative presidential candidate. According to Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections, the threshold for presidential and vice-presidential elections is 20 percent of the DPR seats or 115 seats. To this days, both parliament and government have agreed not to continue discussing the law. “What restricts parties from announcing their candidates is because the current regime restricts them,” he said.
According to Benny, the high satisfaction rate of the people to the President Jokowi’s performance cannot be used as a benchmark to extending his power to three terms. Including pushing for an extension of the presidential term extend of more than five years.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the DPP Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Mardani Ali Sera, said that his party in the parliament still fights for the revisions of election law. He wants the threshold for presidential candidacy to be revised so the PKS could carry its cadre in 2024. Jokowi has a strong stake in determining the corridor to compete,” he said.
Meanwhile the lawmaker from PDI Perjuangan Fraction, Andreas Hugo Pareira stated that until now his party doesn’t yet determine which candidate to the next upcoming presidential election. He said the determination of candidates is the prerogative rights of the general chairperson of the party. In the next presidential election, according to him, it is not only the president who will determine the struggle for the number one seat in this republic. “The vice presidential candidate will also influence other candidates and can be a boosting factor for the presidential candidate,” he said.
