LSI Researcher: Ganjar-Puan Middle Way Couple

Governor of Central Java Ganjar Pranowo/ANTARA

JAKARTA - A senior researcher from the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) Denny JA, Toto Izul Fatah, stated that the Ganjar Pranowo-Puan Maharani duo, which was carried by a number of figures and PDI-P cadres, was a smart solution to become a middle-of-the-road pair of presidential and vice presidential candidates.

"I think the Ganjar-Puan duo is an offer as well as a smart solution that has the potential to break the deadlock and political uncertainty within the PDIP. With this duet, apart from being able to accommodate the various interests of groups that want a certain presidential candidate, it is also possible to make the PDIP even more solid," Toto said in a written statement quoted by Antara, Friday, January 7.

Toto responded to the widespread formation of Laskar Ganjar-Puan in a number of areas such as West Java, Central Java, East Java, Lampung, Maluku, and others.

In fact, according to Toto who is also the Executive Director of LSI Communication Image Denny JA, the Ganjar-Puan pair is very likely to provide many political "benefits" for PDIP, rather than carrying the Prabowo-Puan pair.

Toto explained that the first political "benefit" is that the PDIP will be more solid both in the face of the legislative elections (pileg) and the presidential election (Pilpres) in 2024 because the two camps supporting the presidential candidates, Ganjar and Puan, have united as a couple.

The second political benefit, continued Toto, is that the personal strength of Ganjar's figure with his fairly high electability in all survey institutions is very likely to have a positive electoral effect for the party.

With the electability trend continuing to skyrocket, the figure of Ganjar has the potential to have a "coattail effect" for the PDIP as has happened to the figure of Jokowi in the previous legislative and presidential elections.

Toto admits that until now there has been no clear signal from Mrs. Megawati as the Chairperson of the PDIP DPP regarding who her figure will be, except for the circulation of the Prabowo-Puan discourse which seems to have been left without rebuttal from the PDIP.

Perhaps, he said, in time PDIP would be realistic in using survey data as a guide in carrying out presidential candidates.

"But, in my opinion, if the context is the interests of the party and the interests of winning the 2024 presidential election, PDIP should have brought its two cadres, Ganjar-Puan, rather than Prabowo-Puan," he said.

He admitted specifically that Puan Maharani still had a low electability problem. This should be a big 'PR' for PDIP to take advantage of the remaining two years," he said.

However, according to Toto, from the experience of a number of political contestations in the presidential election so far, even in the regional head elections, victory is mostly determined by the number one figure.

Although, ideally, both the number one and number two figures both have strong electability.

“Ganjar-Puan's main task now is how to take care of the current social capital, especially electability, so that it doesn't decline because of the various blundering maneuvers she's done.

From experience so far, figures who experience a declining trend in electability will usually have difficulty rebounding, let alone winning,” he said.