Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Lenny Tristia Tambun – While several analysts say that Joko Widodo's victory in the Jakarta gubernatorial election is boosting Prabowo Subianto's chance of winning the presidency in 2014, others believe that he may have created a challenger that he cannot defeat.
Prabowo, founder of the Great Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra), was one of the first public figures to nominate Joko and Basuki to run in the Jakarta election, reportedly spending billions of rupiah to help finance the pair's campaign.
He also claimed that he persuaded Megawati Sukarnoputri, chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) to endorse the duo.
Several analysts are convinced that with the gubernatorial victory in the bag, the PDI-P will nominate Joko as its presidential candidate, although it remains a mystery as to whether or not Megawati will decide to give the governor-elect a chance.
However, a survey conducted by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting that polled 1,000 Jakartans just days before the election found that Prabowo was the most popular presidential candidate at this point, with 19.1 percent of respondents vying for him, followed by Megawati and Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie with 10.1 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
"The survey shows that Prabowo's electability is increasing," Grace Natalie, chief executive of SMRC, said on Sunday.
Some 25 percent of voters that would elect Joko would also choose Prabowo, while only 13 percent opted for Megawati with the rest remaining undecided.
Grace added that the survey demonstrates that most of potential voters are not aware of Prabowo's allegedly lengthy track record of human rights abuses. "Most residents say they don't know about the accusations against him [regarding] human rights abuses, making the issue irrelevant in the upcoming election," she said.
Political analyst Salim Said said that the survey would convince Prabowo to run for president because it proved that most people were not aware of his past rap sheet on human rights.
"I think the Jakarta election was used by Prabowo as a test; it showed that Indonesians forget easily. If Jakarta residents, who have high levels of education, can easily forget, people from other regions [will, too]," he said.
While the human rights track record issue is important to Prabowo, his main problem, however, is ensuring major political parties support him since the law states that only a party or a coalition of parties with 20 percent of the vote in a legislative election can nominate a presidential candidate.
Gerindra only garnered 4.5 percent of the vote in 2009, far from being enough to nominate him in the upcoming election.
The former general has been trying to convince Megawati and the PDI-P, along with Yudhoyono and his Democratic Party, to support him. He's still waiting, however, despite a recent meeting with Yudhoyono and his coalition with the PDI-P in support of Joko.
Fachry Ali, a political expert from the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), commented that since Joko has won the Jakarta gubernatorial election, the PDI-P has no choice but to pick him as its presidential candidate for 2014.
"All indicators suggest that Joko can win the country's top job. His charisma and popularity is [on par] with Yudhoyono in 2004 or even [US President Barack] Obama in 2008," he said. "Not even Prabowo can match him."
If Megawati decided to appoint Joko as her nominee, Prabowo could technically be prevented from running, he added.