SMRC Survey: 58 Percent Of Respondents Assess Ganjar Pranowo Will Continue Jokowi's Program

Screenshot - SMRC Research Director Deni Irvani when presenting the survey results as monitored in Jakarta, Tuesday (9/5/2023). (ANTARA/Fath Putra Mulya)

JAKARTA - The survey results of Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) show that 58 percent of critical voters think that Ganjar Pranowo's presidential candidate will continue President Joko Widodo's government program if he is elected to victory in the 2024 presidential election. The name Ganjar, in the survey, was superior in continuing Jokowi's program compared to Prabowo Subianto and Anies Baswedan. "Among the three names, Ganjar Pranowo is considered the most as a presidential candidate who can continue Jokowi's government program," said SMRC Research Director Deni Irvani in Jakarta, Antara, Tuesday, May 9. As many as 58 percent of critical voters think Ganjar will continue Jokowi's program, while another 22 percent say Ganjar will change the program and the remaining 19 percent don't know or don't answer. When confirmed by ANTARA, Deni said that SMRC was collecting figures related to Ganjar's percentage data. In more detail, Deni explained, critical voters who assessed Ganjar would continue Jokowi's program at 58.48373635 percent; while those who considered it would change as much as 22.01809537 percent and those who did not know or did not answer were 19.49816828 percent. Furthermore, Prabowo's critical voter assessment was 36 percent of respondents believed they would continue Jokowi's program, while another 39 percent considered changing the program and the remaining 25 percent did not know or did not answer. "Number two is Prabowo 36 percent," added Deni. Then, the majority of respondents also think that Anies Baswedan will change the presidential government's policies or programs. As many as 47 percent of critical voters perceive Anies to change Jokowi's program, while the remaining 27 percent think that they will continue and the remaining 26 percent do not know or do not answer. "Those who perceive that the presidential candidates will change President Jokowi's policies at most to Anies Baswedan," said Deni. The perception of voters critical of the three names was consistently obtained in two surveys, namely April 25-28 and May 2-5, 2023. "We have measured the same question twice, the results are very consistent, there are no significant changes," he added. From the two SMRC surveys, Ganjar is considered to remain consistent as a prospective presidential candidate who will continue Jokowi's program, while Anies is also considered consistent as a candidate for presidential candidate who is most likely to change Jokowi's program or policy. "Prabowo is also consistently in the midst of the two candidates," said Deni. Critical voters are voters who have cell phones, so they are considered to have more access to sources of social and political information and critically assess various problems. The selection of samples in the SMRC survey was carried out through the random digit dialing (RDD) method. RDD is a technique for randomly selecting samples through the process of generating telephone numbers. With RDD techniques, a sample of 925 respondents was selected through the process of random phone number generation, validation, and screening. The survey margin of error is estimated at around 3.3 percent at a 95 percent confidence level, assuming a simple random sampling. Interviews with respondents were conducted by telephone by trained interviewers. To note, registration for presidential and vice-presidential candidates is scheduled for October 19 to November 25, 2023. Based on Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning Elections (UU Pemilu), pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates are proposed by political parties or coalitions of political parties participating in the election who meet the requirements for obtaining seats of at least 20 percent of the total seats in the DPR or obtaining 25 percent of valid votes nationally in the previous election for members of the DPR. Currently, there are 575 seats in parliament, so that the pairs of presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the 2024 presidential election must have at least 115 seats in the DPR RI. It is also possible that the candidate pairs can be promoted by political parties or a combination of political parties participating in the 2019 Election with a total valid vote acquisition of at least 34,992,703 votes.