When The Three-Term Discourse Boomerang Against Jokowi, People's Judgment Worsened

President Jokowi (doc. BMI Setpres)

JAKARTA - The emergence of the discourse of postponing the 2024 General Election (Pemilu) until the proposal to extend the presidential term that was echoed by a number of political elites and community groups turned out to have influenced the performance assessment of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

This causal condition can be seen from the results of the SMRC survey. SMRC released a poll on public attitudes towards the presidential term in March 2022, in which the issue of postponing elections and extending Jokowi's term was raised.

As a result, the majority of citizens or 73 percent of respondents agreed that the presidential term of office must be maintained for a maximum of two terms. Only 15 percent said the provision should be changed.

Then, respondents were again asked questions regarding the evaluation of Jokowi's performance and other things when the issue of postponing the election developed.

As a result, Jokowi's performance is still considered positive in the eyes of the general public. Even so, in the last three months, public satisfaction with Jokowi's performance has decreased, from 71.1 percent in December 2021 to 64.6 percent in March 2022.

The decline in the public's positive response to the government also decreased, when respondents were asked whether the country was moving in the right direction.

In the last three months, respondents who feel the nation's journey in the right direction decreased from 79 percent to 68 percent today.

The same thing happened to the evaluation of the performance of democracy. In the last three months, respondents who are satisfied with the running of the democratic system in Indonesia decreased, from 63.6 percent in December 2021 to 61.7 percent in March 2022.

The SMRC survey involved 1027 respondents with the implementation on March 13-20 2022. The sample was randomly selected from the population of Indonesian citizens aged 17 years and over or already married when the survey was conducted. The survey's margin of error is estimated at 3.5 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.