SMRC Survey: Majority Of Citizens Don't Believe PKI Is Rising Again

JAKARTA - The survey institute Saiful Mujani Research Center (SMRC) released a poll on public attitudes towards the communist threat in Indonesia. The background of this survey is that the issue of communism every September is always a topic of discussion.

SMRC Program Manager Saidiman Ahmad said that his party asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed if there was currently a revival of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

As a result, the majority of citizens or 84 percent did not agree with the opinion that there was now a revival of the PKI in the country, which 14 percent agreed and 2 percent did not answer.

"So, the majority of Indonesians are not consumed with the issue of the rise of the PKI. There are only 14 percent who believe in the issue," Saidiman said in a virtual survey presentation, Friday, October 1.

In detail, of the 14 percent of respondents who considered the PKI to be resurgent, 49 percent or the majority of them considered the revival to be a real threat to the state.

"Meanwhile, of the 14 percent who believe it, 24 percent consider it a little threatening, 16 percent who think it's not a threat and who strongly believe that the rise of the PKI has never been a threat, 7 percent," said Saidiman.

It is known that this survey was conducted from September 15 to September 2021 to respondents who were Indonesian citizens who were 17 years old or older, or were already married when the survey was conducted.

The survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews to 1,220 randomly selected respondents. The margin of error for this survey is estimated at 3.19 percent and the survey confidence level is 95 percent.