Jakarta – The latest Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) survey has revealed an increase in the fear of most people feel about talking politics over the 10 years President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi) administration.
The survey found that 51 percent of respondents said they were afraid of talking about political issues. This figure comprises 12.9 percent of respondents who are always afraid of talking about politics and 37.7 percent of respondents who are often afraid of talking about politics.
As many as 47.3 percent of respondents included people who are not afraid of talking politics. This figure consists of 29.6 percent of respondents who rarely feel afraid of talking politics and 17.7 percent who are never afraid of talking about politics.
"Previously there has never been a majority of people who were afraid of talking politics, but now at the end of Pak [Mr] Jokowi's administration, those who are afraid of talking politics have become a majority force", said SMRC founder Saiful Mujani during a broadcast on the SMRC TV YouTube channel on Tuesday October 15.
Mujani noted that people who said they were afraid of talking politics before Widodo served as president, in July 2014, totalled 22 percent. This number increased to 43 percent after the 2019 presidential election.
The trend of a fear about talking politics continued to increase. After the February 2024 presidential election, the number of people who were afraid of talking politics soared, going past 51 percent. At present, the number is more than half of the respondents.
The survey also revealed that people's fear of the arbitrariness of law enforcement officials rose from 32 percent to 51 percent. Fear of joining an organisation also rose from 14 percent to 28 percent.
Then fear of practicing a religion rose from 7 percent to 21 percent. And in addition to this, the perception of violations of the constitution and laws by the government jumped from 40 percent to 52 percent.
"[This is because of] the declining performance of democracy from a democracy that was almost consolidated before President Jokowi led [the country] becoming an autocrat or the authoritarianism that occurred, especially in the last five years in Indonesia under his leadership", said Mujani.
This survey was conducted nationally on October 4-11 using a multistage random sampling method with a valid sample of 994 people. The margin of error was around 3.2 percent with a 95 percent confidence level. (dhf/fra)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Survei SMRC: 10 Tahun Jokowi, Warga Semakin Takut Bicara Politik".]
