Indications Of Candidates For 2 Candidates In The 2024 Presidential Election, Voxpol: PDIP Not Ready For 2 Round Elections

JAKARTA - Political analyst and Executive Director of the Voxpol Center Research & Consulting Pangi Syarwi Chaniago assess that there are indications that the current authorities will influence the selection process for the presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs running in the 2024 presidential election.

This was conveyed by Pangi in response to the statement of the Secretary General of the PDI-P (PDIP) Hasto Kristiyanto who wanted only two candidate pairs to participate in the 2024 presidential election.

"Strengthening indications of a very serious effort from the current authorities to influence the selection process for presidential and vice presidential candidates. This kind of political intervention has become a very sensitive issue, because democracy should promote open, equal and fair participation," Pangi said in a written statement, Friday, September 15.

According to him, this suspicion is increasingly being strengthened by the latest data from the Voxpol Center Research and Consulting which reveals that the majority of the public or around 40.3 percent believe there is an intervention by the authorities to influence the selection process for presidential candidate pairs.

"This reflects the level of public distrust of the integrity of the political process," he said.

Pangi said Hasto's statement reflected concerns about the potential defeat if the presidential candidate pair were more than two pairs.

"And if there is a second round election, it is very traumatic for PDIP and has the potential to destabilize their dominance, that means PDIP is not ready if there are 2 (two) rounds of elections, with two pairs of election candidates going to win with one election round only," he said.

He also said, from efforts to simplify the number of candidate pairs, it can be seen as an anticipatory step and mere pragmatic considerations to save pragmatic and transactional interests. PDIP as well, he continued, is very, very confident in experience repeating success like the previous two elections.

"Comply couple from the previous two elections. Only 2 (two) pairs of presidential candidates participated in the election, won in one round," he said.

The latest Voxpol Center Research and Consulting survey was conducted on July 24-August 2, 2023. By using the multistage random sampling method, this survey uses a sample of 1,200 with a margin of error of 2.83 percent.

This survey reached 34 provinces proportionally based on the 20204 election Fixed Voter List (DPT) data. Data collection is conducted through face-to-face interviews by trained surveyors.