Decline of Jokowi's Electability Due to His Personal Leadership

Jakarta (Antara) - The decline in the electability of presidential candidate Joko Widodo or Jokowi has been caused not only by his inactive political machine but also by his own personal leadership, according to a political observer. "The reason for the decline in his electability as revealed by a number of surveys is because of the inactive political machine of his alliance and internal rift within the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP). But the most dominant factor lies in Jokowi himself," Amir Hamzah, urban and political observer of the Budgeting Metropolitan Watch, said here on Friday. He noted that the public were now able to assess the true performance of Jokowi. This has caused a decline to his electability. Amir said that Jokowi had the habit of blaming others if his performance was not good. Even he is inclined to breach the rules and forces his will. "He works not in accordance with the system. His "blusukan" (meet-the-people style of interacting with constituents) habit, for example, could cause some 100 letters being ignored and work being stopped," he said. Earlier, researcher of the Indonesia Survey Circle (LSI) Adjie Alfaraby said Jokowi has not yet made breakthroughs or raised new issues apart from his "blusukan" image, which could raise his electability. In fact, he said, the public have forgotten Jokowi's blusukan issue. "After the peak of his electability due to his blusukan phenomenon, Jokowi has not yet done something new and fresh," Adjie said. He noted that the pace of Jokowi's electability was becoming stagnant, while that of Prabowo Subianto was gaining strength due to his strong and firm leadership. He pointed out that surveys have revealed that the public needed a firm leader, which could be found in Prabowo's personality. (*)