TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The latest survey conducted by pollster Y-Publica revealed that most of the respondents disagree with the recent social discourse trying to encourage the postponement of the 2024 general elections. The majority of respondents also want the elections to be held as scheduled.

“More than 80 percent of the public reject the idea of postponing the elections and want it to continue to be held in 2024,” said Y-Publica executive director Rudi Hartono in a written statement on Thursday, March 10, Antaranews reported.

The pollster conducted the survey from February 24 until March 4, 2022, by performing multistage random sampling on 1,200 respondents. They claim their survey has a margin of error up to 2.89 percent and a 95 percent confidence level.

Moreover, the survey found 81.5 percent of respondents want the 2024 elections to be held as scheduled on February 14, 2024. There are only 12.9 percent in total who do not mind if the election is temporarily postponed with 5.6 percent of the rest either not answering or are undecided.

Rudi Hartono said the notion of delaying the election was related to the idea of extending President Jokowi's term into the third.

“Limiting the presidential term of office to a maximum of two terms is mandated after the reformation era. After being amended, the constitution clearly stipulates that the process of transition of power will run democratically,” said Rudy.

The Y-Publica survey further backed up survey results shown by other pollsters such as the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) that found the majority of people want President Jokowi to end his office term in 2024.

Talks about postponing the 2024 general election were first voiced by Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia and followed by political party leaders. They argue that the election needs to be delayed until the national economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, even though Indonesia held the simultaneous regional head elections (Pilkada) during the heat of the pandemic back in 2020.

Read: President Jokowi Urged to Show Commitment for the 2024 Election

ANTARA