JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian defence minister Prabowo Subianto is predicted to secure over 50% of votes needed to win the country’s presidential election in one round, a new opinion survey showed on Saturday, the last day of campaigning.
Prabowo is projected to gain 51.9% votes, based on a survey of 1,220 respondents by Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI), conducted between Jan. 29 to Feb. 5.
Respondents gave 23.3% of their support for former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and 20.3% for Ganjar Pranowo, former leader of Central Java province, while 4.4% were undecided.
Indonesia’s most-watched surveys have consistently put Prabowo well ahead of Anies and Ganjar. On Friday, pollster Indikator Politik projected Prabowo to pip the 50% threshold needed to win in a single round.
LSI executive director Djayadi Hanan said the survey has a 95% confidence interval and 2.9% margin of error. That suggests a chance the vote would go to a second round and that the numbers were too close to project who the runner-up might be.
A run-off between two candidates with the most votes will be held in June if no candidate gets more than 50% of votes.
Prabowo’s popularity has soared since the ex-special forces commander chose the son of President Joko Widodo, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his running mate in October, signalling to voters that the popular, outgoing leader would support Prabowo’s ticket, Hanan said.
Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, has been accused of interference and bias over his implicit support for Prabowo, which his allies have denied.
Jokowi has not explicitly endorsed any of the three candidates and has said he will not campaign for any candidate.
Gibran is Prabowo’s running mate, owing to a last-minute decision by a court headed by Jokowi’s brother-in-law to change eligibility rules, and the president has made several public appearances with the frontrunner.
(Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor and Sam Holmes)
