Prabowo-Hatta Duo's Elactibility Steadily Increasing: Survey

Jakarta (Antara) - The Indonesian Polling and Survey Institute (SPIN) has released a survey result indicating that the electability of Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa presidential and vice presidential candidate pair has shown a steady increase since early this month. "Based on the results of a telephone survey conducted between June 1 and 4, 2014, the electability of the Prabowo-Hatta duo is increasing," Executive Director of SPIN Igor Dirgantara noted in a written statement here on Thursday. Igor stated that about 44.9 percent of the respondents supported the Prabowo-Hatta pair, while 40.1 percent supported the Jokowi Widodo-Jusuf Kalla duo. About 15 percent of the respondents did not support any pair. According to Igor, the electability trend of the Prabowo-Hatta pair had been increasing since the General Elections Commission (KPU) held a "Peaceful Campaign Declaration" on June 3, 2014. Igor pointed out that the respondents also preferred a pair with a military-civilian background instead of a civilian-civilian pair. He said that about 43.7 percent preferred a military-civilian pair, while 41.3 percent opted for a civilian-civilian pair. The SPIN conducted interviews of 1,070 respondents from 10 big cities in Indonesia who had television sets. The respondents were randomly chosen from Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Padang, Palembang, Manado, Kupang, and Balikpapan. Currently, there are two presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs, Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla and Prabowo-Hatta Rajasa, who will contest in the July 9 presidential election. (*)