SMRC Survey: There Are Still 8 Percent Of Residents Who Believe Jokowi Has Relationships With The PKI

JAKARTA - The survey institute Saiful Mujani Research Center (SMRC) released a poll on public attitudes towards the issue of President Joko Widodo's relationship with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

SMRC Program Manager Saidiman Ahmad said that the propaganda linking Jokowi and the PKI had been rolled out several times over the years.

"We want to see how the public perceives the issue that President Jokowi is a person associated with the PKI. We usually hear propaganda that the President is a PKI person," said SMRC Program Manager Saidiman Ahmad in a virtual survey presentation, Friday, October 1.

As a result, there are still 8 percent of respondents who agree with the notion that Jokowi is related to the PKI. Then, 65 percent disagreed and 16 percent did not answer.

"Generally, the public does not believe the accusation. This has no basis at the level of the masses or the Indonesian public," said Saidiman.

Furthermore, SMRC also asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed if the PKI revival was currently taking place.

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," he said.

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.