Ardito Ramadhan, Jakarta – A survey organised by Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting (SMRC) shows that the public's satisfaction with the performance of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has declined over the last year.
SMRC research director Deni Irvani says that the survey, which was held in March 2022, shows that 64.6 percent of respondents are satisfied with Widodo's performance. This is sharp decline compared with March 2021 when the figure stood at 77 percent.
"From the 77 percent who were satisfied in March 2021, now those who are satisfied are only 64.6 percent, a quite big decline. So the President's performance is seen as getting worse", said Irvani during the release of the survey results on Friday April 1.
Meanwhile the number of respondents who stated they were less than satisfied or not satisfied with Widodo's performance increased from 22.4 percent in March 2021 to 32.2 percent.
"Although the majority (are still satisfied), the decline over last year is very big. This I think is the lowest rating ever of the President's performance by the public", said Irvani.
Aside from the decline in public satisfaction with Widodo, the survey also found that the public's satisfaction with democracy has also declined over the last year.
In March 2022 61.7 percent of respondents were satisfied with the progress of democracy in Indonesia, a decline from 71.9 percent in March 2021.
Irvani suspects that this decline has been influenced by the recent discourse on postponing the 2024 legislative and presidential elections.
"A decline of around 10 percent, a very sharp decline. Coinciding with the discourse on postponing the elections which has been developing over the last few months", said Irvani.
The survey involved 1,220 respondents aged 17 years or more who are already married and were chosen at random using a stratified multistage random sampling method.
The survey's margin of error is estimated to be around 3.12 percent with a 95 percent level of confidence. Face-to-face interviews were conducted between 13-20 March 2022.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Survei SMRC: Kepuasan terhadap Kinerja Presiden dan Demokrasi Menurun".]
