Indonesian government vows to avoid complacency on 80% approval rating for first 100 days


FILE PHOTO: Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto salutes during a welcoming ceremony at the government palace, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Lima, Peru November 14, 2024. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File Photo

JAKARTA: The Indonesian government has promised to avoid complacency while continuing to improve its performance upon welcoming the results of the two latest public opinion polls, which showed high public approval of the first 100 days of Prabowo Subianto’s (pic) presidency.

Prabowo marked his 100th day in office on Tuesday (Jan 28) with an average approval rating of 80 per cent, largely on the back of his firm leadership and populist policies. The figure even surpassed his ever-popular predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, whose two-term presidency began in 2014 and ended last year with ratings of 65 and 75 per cent, respectively.

"The results reflect the people's trust in and support for the steps taken by the government in implementing the national priority agenda," Yusuf Permana, protocol, press and media deputy at the Presidential Secretariat, said in a statement on Thursday.

Yusuf also said the government was well aware that it could not afford to be complacent. “This public satisfaction serves as both a motivation and a responsibility to work smarter, harder, consistently and innovatively to improve public welfare. “The government will continue to improve teamwork between institutions, maintain political stability, increase transparency, efficiency and accountability and ensure that every policy sides with the interests of the people,” he said.

The week before, a poll from Indikator Politik Indonesia found that 79.3 per cent of 1,220 respondents expressed satisfaction with the work Prabowo had done so far, largely because of his firm leadership and initial progress in following through on his campaign promises.

In particular, the approval centres around his free nutritious meal programme for schoolchildren and pregnant women, which launched on Jan 6 and has reached 650,000 students nationwide so far. However, the flagship program’s current coverage is far short of the 3 million students it aims to reach by April, and the meals distributed have been plagued by complaints over their poor quality.

Prabowo publicly admitted last week that securing funding for the programme was not easy and would take time. The programme aims to provide free meals to tens of millions of citizens by the end of his term in 2029 in a bid to combat childhood malnutrition and to encourage growth in regional economies.

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The Indikator Politik poll produced results similar to a separate survey released last week by the Research and Development Department (Litbang) of Kompas daily. This survey found that the President enjoyed an approval rating of 80.9 per cent, largely due to his populist policies.

Prabowo won the presidency in February last year in a landslide on the back of tacit support from Jokowi, the father of his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka. - The Jakarta Post/ANN

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