Jakartans would prefer single round vote for presidential election: Survey

A new survey has revealed Jakartans would prefer a single-round presidential election system, without runoff ballots, because it would be generally more efficient and save money.
“89.1 percent of our respondents said they fully agreed with the idea of having a one-round election,” the Director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies (LSKP), Sunarto Ciptoharjono, told a press conference at Blok-M, South Jakarta, on Tuesday.
“57.7 percent of those surveyed who preferred a one-round election said they believe the cost would be lower if the vote was held in one round. 18.3 percent said they were bored with the election process.”
The survey, which looked at the opinions of 440 respondents, was carried out using the Multistage Random Sampling method from June 20 to June 25.
“We have chosen 440 people as our standard sample size for many years now in our city surveys,” Sunarto said.
However, a political analyst from the Jakarta Islamic State University (UINJ), Bachtiar Effendy, said the survey was flawed.
“For example, it only looked at the responses of 440 people in Jakarta. The presidential election is a national affair, so I am not sure what kind of conclusion we can take away from this survey,” he said.
He also objected to the survey finding that a large number of people in Jakarta were bored with the election.
“If this data is valid and is in fact reflective of the national sentiment toward the election, then I truly feel democracy is in danger. Elections are the only free and fair mechanism for choosing public officials in a democratic country,” he added.
Bachtiar said the survey would likely trigger further controversy because 83.2 percent of its respondents believed that incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would win election in just one round.
Sunarto said his institution was fully independent and free of political motives.
“We fund our own surveys. We did a lot of surveys for legislative candidates in the April 9 legislative elections and saved money for this surveys this time around,” he said.

the jakarta post