Nurfika Osman, Jakarta – In a damning indictment of the Indonesian public's perception of the Indonesian government, less than 4 in 10 people polled in a new survey trust authorities to tackle endemic graft – a more than 50 percent decline in just one year.

The Indonesian Survey Institute poll, released on Thursday, shows that just 34 percent of 1,824 respondents from around Indonesia trust the government, down from 83.7 percent shortly after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was reelected to office last year.

"This is a bad signal for our country because the public trust is very low," LSI chairman Burhanuddin Muhtadi said. "This also shows that the work of the government in tackling corruption is getting worse." He said the "government has failed to create an anticorruption climate in Indonesia."

The survey, conducted from Oct. 10 to Oct. 22, also found that 47.2 percent people still believed the corruption rate in Indonesia would remain high in the future, Burhanuddin said. "Only 0.4 percent believe Indonesia's corruption cases will be low," he said.

He said people's perceptions that corruption eradication efforts were diminishing was fueled by the failure of the National Police and Attorney General's Office to act to address the issue.

"People only rely on the work of the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission]," he said. "People said that they only believed in the KPK and still had faith in antigraft efforts from this institution."