After strong finish, Jokowi may have slight lead

JAKARTA — As voters prepare to vote in Indonesia’s presidential election on Wednesday, the race for the republic’s top office remains too tight to call, but voters and analysts believe Mr Joko “Jokowi” Widodo could maintain his narrow lead over his rival Prabowo Subianto following a strong finish to the month-long campaigning.

Analysts and voters whom TODAY spoke to felt Mr Widodo and his running mate Jusuf Kalla performed better in the last of five televised presidential debates on Saturday, which was the last day of campaigning before a three-day cooling-off period.

“Jokowi-JK (Jusuf Kalla) was the clear winner of Saturday night’s debate,” said film-maker Swastika Nohara, 37.

Mr Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy, felt Mr Widodo appeared far more energised and firm than he had in previous debates. “(This is) a style that will help him with voters who doubt his ability to drive policy in such a rambunctious democracy,” he said.

S Rajaratnam School of International Studies Assistant Professor Nawab Osman noted that despite a poor campaign strategy and a smear campaign conducted against him, Mr Widodo has continued to maintain a lead over Mr Prabowo. “With a clearer message in the last couple of days of campaigning, I think the (Widodo-Kalla) pair may have just been able to sway some undecided voters,” he added.

Mr Widodo has led former army general Prabowo in opinion polls for months, but the lead has narrowed sharply to a low single digit in recent weeks. This has led some to believe that Mr Prabowo might even overtake him if he could finish the campaign on a strong note. But Mr Widodo’s solid performance in the last televised debate — on the issues of energy, food security and the environment — may have salvaged his campaign.

In recent weeks, Mr Widodo had been hit by a smear campaign, including one by a tabloid distributed among Islamic boarding schools in Java that described him as a non-Muslim of Chinese descent who was corrupt and a puppet candidate of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Mr Widodo’s often disorganised campaign efforts, compared with Mr Prabowo’s slick and well-funded campaign, is seen as another reason for his loss of ground in the lead-up to last Saturday’s debate.

With most voters having already made up their minds, the results could be decided by swing voters or abstentions, analysts have said.

Opinion polls put the figure of undecided voters at between 10 and 20 per cent of the electorate.

For this group, the televised debates were an important guide to policies and personalities, said Mr Keith Loveard, a senior risk analyst at Jakarta-based Concord Consulting.

Abstention figures could also play a role in deciding the tight election outcome, said National University of Singapore Associate Professor Bilveer Singh. “I really believe it is very close and the race can go either way … the key would be how many do not go out and vote.”

Civil servant Yudha Perwira, 32, is one such voter. “I’ve seen the debates and so far they haven’t convinced me to choose a candidate,” he said. “Both candidates’ track records are not convincing enough and the people around them are flawed … I’m just sick and tired of the country’s politics and status quo.”

Yesterday, Mr Widodo flew to Mecca for a pilgrimage, or Umrah, until Tuesday. The Jakarta Post reported him as saying he had performed the pilgrimage before all the elections in which he had stood. “During the quiet period, I usually perform Umrah. I did so for the (2012 Jakarta) gubernatorial election and the (Surakarta) mayoral elections (in 2012, 2010 and 2005). During this period, I pray, stay quiet and just let God take care of the rest,” he said.

Mr Widodo had ended his closing statement during Saturday’s debate with a prayer, “effectively silencing those who have swallowed the propaganda that he is not a Muslim”, Mr Loveard said.