Indonesia’s Prabowo on track for presidential majority

JAKARTA, Feb 10 — Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto is on course to secure over 50 per cent of the votes in the country’s presidential election, winning in one round, an opinion survey showed today, the last day of campaigning.

Prabowo is projected to gain 51.9 per cent of the votes, based on a survey of 1,220 respondents by Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI), conducted between Jan. 29 and February 5.

Trailing him were former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan with 23.3 per cent support, and 20.3 per cent for Ganjar Pranowo, former leader of Central Java province, while 4.4 per cent were undecided.

Indonesia’s most-watched surveys have consistently put Prabowo well ahead of Anies and Ganjar. Yesterday, pollster Indikator Politik also projected Prabowo exceeding the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a June run-off between the top vote-getters.

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The LSI survey has a 95 per cent confidence interval and 2.9 per cent margin of error, said executive director Djayadi Hanan. That suggests a chance the vote would go to a second round and that the numbers were too close to project who the runner-up might be.

Prabowo’s popularity has soared since the ex-special forces commander chose the son of President Joko Widodo, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his running mate in October, signalling to voters that the popular, outgoing leader would support Prabowo’s ticket, Hanan said.

Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, has been accused of interference and bias over his implicit support for Prabowo, which his allies have denied.

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Jokowi has not explicitly endorsed any candidate and has said he will not campaign for any candidate.

Gibran is Prabowo’s running mate, owing to a last-minute decision by a court headed by Jokowi’s brother-in-law to change eligibility rules, and the president has made several public appearances with the frontrunner. — Reuters