Anastasia Winanti Riesardhy – Prabowo Subianto, a former Army general widely considered the leading candidate for next year's presidential election, says he will not be swayed by a recent surge in the polls by Joko Widodo, the popular governor of Jakarta.

"I will still press ahead with my [presidential] bid," he said on Thursday at a seminar on national development in Jakarta. "Why shouldn't I go ahead when I already have popular support? It's all down to popular support."

Prabowo added that he was not concerned about the impact to his own bid from Joko's emergence as a possible front-runner in the race, saying that he was not surprised at the high level of support for the governor.

Prabowo, the former commander of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus), has led most opinion polls of established political heavyweights likely to run for president next year, coming out ahead of the likes of longtime military rival Wiranto, former president Megawati Sukarnoputri and Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie.

However, Joko, who has stated he is more interested in seeing out his term as governor than running for president, has barely featured in such polls until recently.

The latest survey, whose results were published on Monday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, showed Joko leading the field, with 29 percent of the 1,600 respondents polled saying they would vote for him.

Prabowo was a distant second with 16 percent, followed by Aburizal with 7 percent and Megawati with 5 percent.

Despite Joko's stated reluctance to run, analysts contend that he appears increasingly likely to stand, especially in the wake of the CSIS survey and signals from his party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), that party chairwoman Megawati may cede the nomination to a younger candidate.

Analysts have said that Joko's loyalty to Megawati has prevented him from expressing his willingness to run for president, as the chairwoman has indicated on several occasions that she wished to run for a third time.

Other parties are also starting to notice Joko's rising influence in politics.

The ruling Democratic Party has expressed interest in poaching Joko to run for it. "The Democrats' door is always open, including for Joko," the deputy secretary general of the party, Ramadhan Pohan, said earlier this week.

Speculation is also mounting about a possible Prabowo-Joko ticket in 2014, given the close ties between the PDI-P and Prabowo's Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).

However, Martin Hutabarat, a member of Gerindra's board of advisers, said the time was not right for Joko to come forward, adding that he should see out his term as governor before considering a presidential bid.