Election Postponement Potentially Triggers Legitimacy Crisis And Public Trust

Igor Dirgantara/Photo: Antara

JAKARTA - Political observer and Executive Director of the Indonesian Survey and Polling (SPIN) Igor Dirgantara stated that the postponement of the 2024 election has the potential to cause a crisis of legitimacy and a crisis of public confidence in the government. considered to hurt democracy and the spirit of reform," said Igor in a statement received in Jakarta, Sunday, February 27. Besides that, according to him, no country in the world has linked the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with the need to extend power, as the reason "Automatically, President Joko Widodo's whispers related to the extension of power are actually more dangerous than COVID-19 itself," said Igor. The 2024 election misunderstood the survey results related to public satisfaction with the performance of the Indonesian President Joko Widodo's government. The survey results, said Igor, did not mean that the public wanted an extension of the presidential term.

"The results from various surveys show that public satisfaction with President Jokowi's performance is quite high and the economy is improving. However, that does not mean the public wants to extend the term of office of the president," he said. Widodo has more negative impacts than benefits from the political and economic aspects. He said that one of the politically negative impacts of extending the presidential term is that the public, especially voters who were previously satisfied, will be shifted to those who do not like the performance of President Joko Widodo. "Moreover, even openly, President Jokowi often expresses his disagreement with the discourse on extending his term of office or for three terms," he said.