Survey of Kukar Pair in Regional Head Election: Dendi Suryadi-Alif Turiadi's Electability Beats Incumbent

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Survey Panel (PSI) conducted a survey on political preferences and public perceptions of three pairs of candidates for regent and deputy regent of Kutai Kartanegara (Kukar) ahead of the 2024 Pilkada voting day. The results showed that in terms of Top of Mind, the electability of the Dendi Suryadi-Alif Turiadi pair was the highest with a figure of 47.6 percent.

In second place, there was the incumbent pair Edi Damansyah-Rendi Solihin at 30.2 percent. Meanwhile, in third place was the independent pair Awang Yacoub Luthman-Akhmad Jaiz at 2.1 percent.

"Meanwhile, those who did not answer or did not provide a choice were 20.1 percent," said PSI Executive Director Mahendra Zaini in his statement, Tuesday, November 12.

Meanwhile, in a simulation of closed questions if the regional elections were held today and assisted by ballots, the electability of Dendi Suryadi-Alif Turiadi shot up to 53.7 percent.

"Meanwhile, the incumbent pair Edi Damansyah-Rendi Solihin reached 32.6 percent, the independent pair Awang Yacoub Luthman-Akhmad Jaiz reached 2.3 percent, and 11.4 percent did not vote," said Zaini.

Mahendra Zaini revealed that the survey results also recorded the level of voter steadfastness regarding their current choice with their choice later on voting day on November 27, 2024.

The results were 80.8 percent very firm and firm with their current choice and on voting day. Meanwhile, 15.1 percent were not yet firm and would still change their choice, and 4.1 percent did not know.

Zaini said that the low electability of the Edi Damansyah-Rendi Solihin pair was due to the incumbent's approval rating being below 50 percent. Where, he said, 62.8 percent of the Kukar community were dissatisfied with the performance of Edi Damansyah who led for two terms.

"This is confirmed by the assessment of the community during the survey that as many as 68.8 percent of the community considered basic services and accessibility between regions, the quality of roads and bridges in residential areas and access to regional economic centers are not yet available properly," explained Zaini.

Then, he continued, as many as 73.8 percent of the Kukar community considered that the coverage of clean water and electricity services was still not fully accessible in remote areas in Kukar. And as many as 69.3 people, especially farmers, complained in agricultural areas.

"In addition, there are potential agricultural areas that do not yet have good water management. As many as 70.2 percent complained about the availability of high schools and equivalents. So that as many as 6 thousand students are not accommodated at the high school/equivalent level in the Kukar area," explained Zaini.

The PSI survey was conducted in the period 29 October-8 November 2024 involving 1,480 respondents aged 17 years or older from a voter population of 552,469 people. They were taken from 44 sub-districts and 173 villages in Kutai Kartanegara.

Respondents were interviewed directly using a random sampling method. After the interview process, quality control was also carried out in the field, or known as quality control.

Quality control was carried out randomly by 20 percent of the total sample by the supervisor by returning to the selected respondents in the quality control, no errors were found.

The margin of error is around ±2.54 percent at a 95 percent confidence level.