Jakarta – Most voters still prefer parties over candidates, despite a Constitutional Court ruling that means parties will have little say in who gets a legislative seat, a survey said Friday.
"People still vote based on the flags of political parties, and not the candidates," Kusrido Ambardi from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) told a press conference in Jakarta to unveil the survey's findings.
The study was conducted from Feb. 8-18, 2009, using a random sampling of 2,455 eligible voters across Indonesia.
It has a margin of error of approximately 2.4 percent. Using simulation ballots, respondents were asked whether they would vote for parties, legislative candidates or both.
Kusrido said 44 percent of respondents voted for parties, while 36 percent voted for candidates and only 12 percent voted for both.
This indicated the new open system would have no significant role in increasing votes for candidates, the survey said.
"There are too many candidates and too little time," Kusrido said. "This creates confusion among voters. Thus they prefer the easy way of identifying certain parties."
He added there was little space for individuality since the candidates' images were still very much influenced by their parties. "If the image of the party is good, whoever it nominates will tend to benefit," he said.
"Conversely, if the candidates are of good quality but their parties have a poor image, they tend to be categorized into a bad political group, so they are not elected."
Kusrido added voters with higher educational backgrounds tended to vote for candidates, as opposed to those with less education, who mostly voted for parties.
The LSI is one of many pollsters conducting a flurry of surveys as the April 9 legislative elections draw near. The presidential election will be held on July 5.
The institute was hired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party to help boost its political support ahead of the elections, party deputy chairman Ahmad Mubarok has confirmed.
Not surprisingly, the survey also revealed that the Democratic Party enjoyed the biggest support of 24.3 percent, as compared to 17 percent for its strongest contender, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
"Voter preference for the Democratic Party increased steadily from June last year," Kusrido said.
However, the party is highly dependent on Yudhoyono to draw voters. "From December 2006 to February this year, the survey showed there was a weak correlation between Yudhoyono and the Democratic Party," he said.
According to Kusrido, the number of those voting for Yudhoyono was almost always twice as much as those voting for the Democratic Party.
"While the preference for Yudhoyono increased significantly by 7 percent from December 2008 to February, preference for the Democratic Party only increased by 1 percent," Kusrido said.
He explained that so far the public remained satisfied with Yudhoyono's performance, thus bolstering the President's chance of being reelected in July. "Some 70 percent of respondents said they were happy with Yudhoyono's work."
Kusrido added that according to the survey, the public thought well of the President's efforts to maintain security and combat corruption.
Nevertheless, the party's dependence on Yudhoyono will lessen its power in parliamentary politics, J. Kristiadi from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said during Friday's LSI survey launch.
"The Democratic Party will have to pair up with a party that has enough power in the House of Representatives," Kristiadi said, pointing out the Golkar Party as the most sensible choice. Golkar is headed by Vice President Jusuf Kalla.
"In this case, maintaining the Yudhoyono-Kalla partnership is the best step for winning the presidential election," Kristiadi added. (dis)