TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The latest Saiful Munjani Research and Consulting (SMRC) survey showed that public acceptance of House Speaker and possible future presidential candidate Puan Maharani has grown weaker. The pollster said that it will be a difficult task for the PDIP as her main endorser to grab the public interest for its candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

SMRC founder Saiful Mujani on Thursday said public acceptance for Puan - daughter of PDIP chairperson Megawati - has shown a constant decline based on their latest survey in August this year. Compared to the February-March period, the results were 60 percent compared to 44 percent.

Puan had even scored lower than the three other strong candidates, namely: Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, as well as Defense Minister and Gerindra chair Prabowo Subianto.

"The public acceptance of Puan is too far compared to the other three names (Ganjar, Prabowo, and Anies)," said Saiful in a written statement on September 15.

The pollster believes PDIP as a political party can reignite its hopes of having a strong presidential candidate by endorsing Ganjar Pranowo. The latest SMRC survey that involved 1,220 respondents under a stratified multistage random sampling found Puan Maharani's electability to grow from 0.5 percent to merely 1 percent.

RIRI RAHAYU

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