Jakarta – Vice President Ma'ruf Amin's underwhelming approval rating during his first 100 days in office compared unfavorably to his predecessor's, according to a recent survey by Jakarta-based pollster Indo Barometer.
The poll, which was conducted from Jan. 9 to 15, found that only 49.6 percent of 1,200 respondents were very satisfied or quite satisfied with Ma'ruf's performance, compared to the 53.3 percent who were satisfied with then-vice president Jusuf Kalla's performance in a similar poll conducted in March 2015.
Ma'ruf's approval rating in the survey also paled in comparison to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's, which sits at 70.1 percent.
In contrast to Ma'ruf's lukewarm reception in the poll, public approval of the current administration as a whole improved significantly from the previous one, with 54.4 percent of respondents saying that they were satisfied with the performance of the Jokowi-Ma'ruf's Cabinet.
An Indo Barometer survey conducted in March 2015 found that only 46.8 percent of its respondents approved of the Jokowi-Kalla Cabinet.
"This marks the first time I've seen the public favoring ministers over a vice president," Indo Barometer executive director Muhammad Qodari said on Sunday.
Ma'ruf has spent his first 100 days in office out of the spotlight, drawing unfavorable comparisons to the outspoken Kalla, who played a large role in policy-making.
It was previously projected that the senior Muslim cleric's advanced age and relatively limited experience in party politics would give him a more peripheral role than former vice president Jusuf – and the past few months seem to have confirmed that.
Ma'ruf has claimed that his absence from the spotlight has been deliberate.
"I am the vice president. The President should be the one who stands out. If the vice president stood out, there would be twin suns," he told reporters recently. (rfa)