SP/Carlos Paath – An official from the Great Indonesia Movement Party deplored a recent survey in which Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama surfaced as the most electable individual for the vice presidency seat in the 2014 election, raising concerns on the capital city's fate should its newly elected leaders run for seats in the central government next year.

"If one would become a presidential candidate and the other a vice president candidate, what would be the fate of Jakarta? Gerindra [Great Indonesia Movement Party] backed the pair as governor and deputy governor," Gerindra secretary general Ahmad Muzani said Wednesday.

A national survey by Cyrus Network released earlier this week showed Basuki as the most electable vice president candidate with an electability of 21 percent by the end of September, rising from 16.3 percent earlier in the month.

The numbers put him on par with State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan, who earlier in September was favored by 17.5 percent of the survey's 1,020 respondents.

In addition to coming in as the most electable person for vice president, Basuki also topped public opinion polls on who they think is most fit to pair up with the very popular Joko Widodo as president, earning up to 31.6 percent.

"What is most interesting is the public's opinion on who is most fitting to pair with Joko as a vice president. Basuki's name stood out with 31.6 percent," Cyrus Network senior consultant Hafizul Mizan Piliang said in his press release on Tuesday.

Muzani said such results served as an example of how Indonesia's democracy was continuously being tested, in that the public should not merely elect a leader based on their popularity.

"This nation has to think about improving the quality of its governmental system so that it will not end up with merely a notional democracy," he said.

Earlier on Monday, Basuki shrugged off the survey results as a joke. "That's just another joke. Even the governor does not mind such things, why would I, as his staff, mind such things? That guy must be crazy. It's so stressful nowadays just being a deputy governor," he said at City Hall earlier this week.

Basuki questioned the credibility of the people behind the survey. "Those guys are just making that up. What do they want?" he said. "If you want to make gossips, spread good gossips."

The deputy governor went so far as to joke that if he were to come forward in a general election he would like to be nominated as president. "If I think about it, I think I want to become president. Why settle for vice president?" he said, as quoted by Inilah.com.