Muninggar Sri Saraswati – A national survey released on Sunday shows the public squarely identifying Vice President Boediono and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati as behind the decision to bail out PT Bank Century, a decision currently being investigated by a special committee of lawmakers.
Only 10 percent of respondents to the survey – conducted by the private research institute Indo Barometer – said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should be considered responsible for the controversial Rp 6.7 trillion ($710 million) bailout. More than 53 percent said they believed he did nothing wrong.
About 46 percent of respondents said they considered Boediono primarily responsible for the bailout, while 43 percent pointed to Sri Mulyani. Both have testified before a House of Representatives special committee that they acted because Bank Century posed a systemic risk to the country's banking system.
Boediono was central bank governor at the time. As finance minister, Sri Mulyani chaired the Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK), which approved the bailout on Nov. 21, 2008. "Boediono has been hurt deeply by this case," said M Qodari, who leads the survey group.
The survey, taken from Jan. 8-18, involved 1,200 respondents in 33 provinces. Respondents were selected based on multiple-staged random sampling, with a margin of error of 3 percent.
Respondents were asked whether they felt Yudhoyono, Boediono and Sri Mulyani "were guilty" – without mentioning any specific crime. The results showed that 46 percent of respondents believed Boediono was guilty, 43 percent felt Mulyani was guilty, and 25 percent thought Yudhoyono was guilty.
"I don't know why, but there is a huge gap between public opinion toward Boediono-Sri Mulyani and toward SBY," Qodari said, referring to the president.
The survey wasn't all good news for Yudhoyono, however. More than 77 percent of respondents said they had been closely following developments in the House investigation of the bailout, while only 49 percent knew about the government's first-100-days program.
The survey said that nearly half of respondents believed Yudhoyono's image had suffered as a result of the investigation, which is also trying to determine whether bailout funds were illegally diverted to the 2009 election coffers of his Democratic Party.
In an earlier survey, Indo Barometer reported that the president's popularity had dropped from 90 percent when he was sworn in in October to 75 percent this month.
Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said the survey showed that Yudhoyono's popularity remained high. "The president was not worried by the surveys as he is committed to fulfilling his duties and implementing the programs that have been set," he said.