Sanctioned By Quiet In The Aftermath Of The Jakarta Gubernatorial Election Survey, Poltracking Feels Unfairly Treated

JAKARTA - Director of Poltracking Indonesia Masduri Amrawi opened his voice on the sanctions imposed by the Ethics Council of the Indonesian Public Opinion Survey Association (Persepi) after the examination of the results of the electability survey of candidate pairs in the Jakarta gubernatorial election.

In the aftermath of examining survey data which is considered odd by Persepi, Poltracking is subject to sanctions not to publish survey results in the future without the Ethics Council's approval.

Not accepting being subject to sanctions, Masduri said Poltracking finally decided to leave Persepi's membership.

"We feel that Poltracking has been treated unfairly. Since today we have decided to leave the Persepi membership. We left Persepi not because we violated ethics. But because we felt that from the start there were members of the Persepi Ethics Council who were tendentious at Poltracking Indonesia," Masduri said in his statement, Tuesday, November 5.

Masduri emphasized that since the beginning Poltracking submitted 2000 data processed in the Jakarta Pilkada survey. Meanwhile, the ethics board felt unable to verify Poltracking data. In fact, Masduri feels that his party has submitted all the requested data and provided a detailed explanation.

He said Perceptions did not convey specific requests regarding the raw data attachment from the dashboard. Thus, Masduri does not understand what is meant by the many differences between the initial data and the latter data. Poltracking did not get any explanation about this.

"How naive it is, Poltracking must risk its track record and reputation for 12 years only because of one Jakarta Pilkada survey. We feel Poltracking has been treated unfairly. Since today we have decided to leave the Persepi membership. We left Persepi not because it violated ethics," he explained.

For information, the Persepi Ethics Council has examined two institutions that released survey results regarding the electability of candidates for Governor-Deputy Governor of Jakarta with different results at the same time.

In a survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) conducted on October 10-17, Pramono-Rano's electability was recorded at 41.6 percent, then Ridwan Kamil-Suswono 37.4 percent, and Dharma Pongrekun-Kun Wardana 6.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Poltracking survey conducted on October 10-16 explained that the electability of RK-Suswono was at 51.6 percent, followed by Pramono-Rano at 36.4 percent and Dharma-Kun at 3.9 percent.

Chairman of the Persepi Ethics Council, Asep Saefuddin, explained that the results of the examination stated that LSI had conducted a survey in accordance with standard operating procedures (SOP) for public opinion surveys.

"The examination and implementation method (LSI survey) can be well analyzed," Asep said in his statement, Monday, November 4.

Meanwhile, the Ethics Council cannot assess whether the implementation of the Jakarta Pilkada survey conducted by Poltracking is in accordance with the SOP for public opinion surveys. This is because there is no certainty which data should be used as the basis for the assessment. At the examination, Poltracking could not show the original data of 2,000 samples. Thus, the Ethics Council decided to impose sanctions on Poltracking.

"The Ethics Council will impose sanctions on Poltracking Indonesia in the future not to be allowed to publish survey results without first obtaining data approval and examination by the Ethics Council, unless Poltracking Indonesia is no longer a member of Persepi," explained Asep.