Public Still Reserved About Presidential Candidates for 2024

Given the list of prospective presidential candidates and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the public seems reserved about the 2024 General Election.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Two pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates participating in the 2019 Presidential Election, Joko Widodo-Ma\'ruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, at the KPU Office, Jakarta, September 21 2018.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – At present, the majority of people have yet to think about the 2024 General Election, let alone their preferred choice of presidential candidate. Public attention is still distracted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Such a trend was revealed in a recent survey by the Kompas Research and Development Center.

About 21 percent of respondents in the survey, which was held in April 2021, stated that they had not yet decided whom they would vote for as president in the next election to be held within three years.

Also read:

^ Public Appreciation Can Become Social Capital for Government

^ Safeguarding Good Governance

The number of undecided respondents appeared to be higher than the electability of some names expected to enter the national leadership contention, which turned out to be dominated by old faces.

When asked the name of a presidential candidate to be chosen if the presidential election was held at this time, 24 percent of respondents picked Joko Widodo.

As many as 16 percent of respondents chose Prabowo Subianto and 10 percent gave their preference to Anies Baswedan. The rest mentioned Sandiaga Uno, Ganjar Pranowo, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, Ridwan Kamil, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and Tri Rismaharini, all of whose electability were still below 10 percent.

Public attention is still distracted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The choice of names and the level of electability are still very likely to change because the election is still three years away, while political parties as well as prospective candidates are not yet engaging in campaigning and promotion activities in the community.

Based on the Constitution, President Jokowi is not allowed to run again in the 2024 Presidential Election (Pilpres) because he has served twice.

People’s indifference

KOMPAS/NINO CITRA ANUGRAHANTO

Lecturer at the Department of Politics and Government, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UGM, Mada Sukmajati

When contacted from Jakarta on Monday (3/5/2021), Mada Sukmajati, a lecturer at the Department of Politics and Governance of Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta, said the election hype had yet to trickle because the 2024 General Election was still way ahead while people were still coping with the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The public is not yet preoccupied with the political agenda, so there are no names identified as strong enough to be new alternatives," Mada said.

Furthermore, Mada added, the people’s mood has yet to detach from the reverberation of the 2019 presidential election.

That makes the household names -- those featuring in the 2019 presidential election, such as Jokowi, Prabowo and Sandiaga Uno – remain in their minds.

Also read: Political Parties Going Nowhere

That the familiar faces still come up on the prospective candidate list for the 2024 election also indicates that political parties have not carried out cadre regeneration efforts optimally.

The Kompas survey also found only three political parties succeeded in raising their own cadres for the upcoming presidential election, namely the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Gerindra and the Democratic Party.

Mada sees that political parties as the main actors in the election have not played their roles optimally.

Most political parties have not succeeded in carrying out their recruitment and development functions properly to nurture potential national leaders. In fact, to carry out their function in developing leadership figures, they need to introduce cadres of future national leadership long before the election is held.

ANTARA FOTO/RENO ESNIR

Officers clean up the flags of the 2019 political parties at the KPU Building, Jakarta, Tuesday (3/7).

That being worked, political parties can expect voters to get to know more about potential national leaders, and see their responses.

“The other parties that pass the parliamentary threshold also should open the door to regeneration of national leadership. Do not let Jakarta elites dominate, but try to turn to regional leaders,” Mada said.

Also read: Political Party Reform

Head of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Political Research Center, Firman Noor, also sees that political parties are more inclined to support a figure who already has popularity than introducing a new name. This is because the political parties prioritize the interests of the electorate more than the competence and capability of the candidates in the political contest.

"The party certainly does not want its support for a candidate to become counterproductive to the vote gains. So, the proportion of electoral interests weigh more than the assessment about a candidate being good or not,” Firman said.

Do not let Jakarta elites dominate, but try to turn to regional leaders.

Work to be done

Saan Mustopa, chairman of the NasDem Party’s West Java chapter, was also aware about the current public political state in relation to national leadership and the upcoming presidential election, saying the party needed to optimize the regeneration process with focus on the aspects of popularity and acceptability.

Meanwhile, PDI-P secretary general Hasto Kristiyanto said the party’s cadres appearing among prospective presidential candidates testified to their worked-out regeneration program.

"This shows that the party is on the right track when the process of improving the quality of cadres is seen as the priority benchmark," Hasto said.

For the 2024 presidential election, he said, the PDI-P has the obligation to push their own cadres.

This article was translated by Musthofid.