The results of the survey by the Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicate from October 3-8, 2011 in 33 provinces in the country involving 1,318 respondents showed 28 percent of respondents chose Prabowo as presidential candidate while 10.6 percent chose Constitutional Court chairman Mahfud MD.
Other candidates included former economic minister Sri Mulyani (7.4 percent), Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie (6.8 percent), Nahdlatul Ulama Islamic organization chief Said Akil Siradj (6.0 percent), Muhammadiyah Islamic leader Din Syamsuddin (5.2 percent), army chief of staff General Pramono Edhie Wibowo (4.2 percent), former vice president Jusuf Kalla (4.0 percent), chief security minister Djoko Suyanto (3.2 percent), chief economic minister Hatta Rajasa (2.8 percent) and businessman Surya Paloh (2.5 percent).
Soegeng Saryadi Syndicate executive director Toto Sugiarto said most respondents had chosen a military figure to be the country`s next president because they missed a strict leader and therefore 65 percent had chosen Prabwowo.
"33.8 percent of respondents still believe a military figure is fit to be elected president in 2014," he said.
Second in the ranking was an academic collecting 17.2 votes, followed by religious figure (12.1 percent), businessman (9.7 percent) and political party figure (8.9 percent).
The results of the survey done based on a stratified random sampling indicated that the military-civilian dichotomy has not yet completely vanished.
The choice of a military figure correlates with public desire for the government to focus on corruption eradication.
A total of 40.5 percent of respondents urged the government to immediately settle the corruption and bribery problems.
Other problems needing urgent settlements were poverty according to 29.8 percent of respondents, unemployment (16 percent), mafia operations in all sectors (10.4 percent) and sovereignty (3.1 percent).
About a vice president, most respondents choose an honest and smart person. The two qualities were represented in Constitutional Court figure Mahfud MD who won 15.6 percent of votes.
Following him were Sri Mulyani Indrawati (8.0 percent), Pramono Edhie Wibowo (7.1 percent), Din Syamsuddin (6.8 percent), KH Said Aqil Siradj (6.3 percent), Djoko Suyanto (3.9 percent) and Puan Maharani, the daughter of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri (3.0 percent).
Earlier, the Reform Institute issued survey results showing Aburizal Bakrie to be the most popular figure as a candidate for the 2014 presidential elections. He obtained 13.58 percent votes of 2,010 respondents involved in the survey.
In the survey Prabowo Subianto was ranked second with 8.46 percent of the votes.
(Uu.H-YH/HAJM/A014)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
