"Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a president or any other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the people ...," said George Gallup, an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the phenomenal Gallup poll.
Similar positive feedback is expected from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose job approval rating has significantly dropped from the time of his reelection in 2009. Any reactive response from him or his supporters will only bring his popularity down further instead of regaining the hearts and support of his voters.
The latest survey by the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI), which was conducted before last week's execution of Ruyati binti Satubi, an Indonesian migrant worker in Saudi Arabia, revealed Yudhoyono's ratings had plunged from 56.7 percent in January this year to a new low of 47.2 percent this month.
"If the LSI conducted the survey after Ruyati's execution by beheading, the President's approval rating could have dropped even further," Sunarto Ciptoharjono, director of the Public Policy Survey Circle (LSKP), a subsidiary of the LSI that helped conduct the survey, said.
Yudhoyono's tendency for publicly venting personal and trivial thoughts and the absence of competent political operators among his confidants are cited as among the factors behind his poor ratings in the survey, which was based on interviews with 600 male and 600 female respondents in cities and villages in all 33 provinces from June 1-7, 2011.
Respondents were also disappointed in the fact there are several unresolved cases, including the assassination of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, the controversial Bank Century bailout and the surge of rights violations against minorities in the country.
Earlier this month, a similar survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute (also abbreviated as LSI) found public satisfaction toward Yudhoyono's leadership had plunged to 47 percent from about 61 percent at the start of his second term in 2009. The survey was also based on interviews with 1,200 respondents in 33 provinces.
Unlike the latest survey, the preceding one by the Indonesian Survey Institute revealed that Yudhoyono's declining popularity resulted from scandals that had implicated Democratic Party members, including former party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin, Angelina Sondakh and Andi Nurpati. Nazaruddin and Angelina were implicated in bribery allegations surrounding the construction of an athletes' dormitory for the Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, South Sumatra, while Andi had allegedly fabricated a letter involving a dispute over a House seat in 2009.
As the two surveys came to nearly the same conclusion, the President should therefore pay more serious attention and take immediate action in response to the public views expressed in the two surveys.
The President, who according to the Constitution is not eligible to run for a third term, still has three more years to complete his current term and most importantly to produce policies or programs the nation will recall as his legacy.
The fact that Yudhoyono's approval rating or popularity is below the psychological limit of 50 percent might indicate that the majority of the public no longer trust the President. And unless he can produce tangible – not necessarily spectacular or landmark – policies or programs throughout the rest of his tenure, he would be remembered as a mediocre president in the country's history, despite his success of staying in office twice. It is a rare, but not impossible, feat of a democratic election.