Polemic Of Survey Institutes, The Quiet Ethics Council Is Considered To Have Conflict Of Interest

Three candidate pairs in the Jakarta Pilkada, Ridwan Kamil-Suswono, Dharma Pongrekun-Kun Wardana Abyoto and Pramono Anung-Rano Karno during their inaugural debate at JIExpo Kemayoran, Jakarta, Sunday 6 October 2024. (ANTARA PHOTO-Aprillio Akbar)

JAKARTA - The Decree of the Ethics Council of the Indonesian Public Opinion Survey Association (Persepi) has imposed sanctions on Poltracking Indonesia regarding the results of the Jakarta Pilkada survey that led to controversy.

Political communication expert and Professor of the University of Education Indonesia (UPI), Prof. Karim Suryadi found this strange. He questioned the objectivity of the decision-making process of the Persepi Ethics Council, which is one of its members, Saiful Mujani, the owner of the survey institute.

"What is my question is how the independence and objectivity of the ethics board is. Is the membership ethics board free from the interests of survey institutions or not," he said, Monday, November 11.

It is known that Saiful Mujani is the founder of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) who served as the Executive Director of LSI for the 2005-2010 period. Only in 2011, Saiful Mujani founded a political survey and consulting institution called Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC).

Dari jejak itu, Karim sangasi dengan neutralitas Saiful Mujani dalam mengambil keputusan ketika menjadi anggota Dewan Etik Persepi dalam menyidang Poltracking dan LSI.

Not to mention, he continued, there has been widespread chat in the WhatsApp Persepi group regarding Saiful Mujani with a tendentious tone towards Poltracking Indonesia which has differences with LSI in the results of the 2024 Jakarta Pilkada survey.

In the survey, Poltracking showed the electability rate of Ridwan Kamil-Suswono's pair at 51.6 percent, followed by Pramono Anung-Rano Karno at 36.4 percent, and Dharma Pongrekun-Kun Wardana at 3.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the results of the LSI survey stated that Pramono Anung-Rano Karno's data was superior with 41.6 percent, while Ridwan Kamil-Suswono only got 37.4 percent, and Dharma-Kun was in a distended position with 6.6 percent electability.

According to Karim, the decision of the Persepi Ethics Council to impose sanctions on Poltracking without reason of apparent violations further strengthens the alleged conflict of interest. This action shows how fragile the ethical control system is in the national survey industry.

"You have to explain openly. And the most important thing in my opinion is that Poltracking does not have two data, not that, but also explains how the membership level of the ethics council is and they have no interest," said Karim.