Arya News - The survey came amid growing public frustration over the government’s handling of crises across the country – including prolonged wildfires in Kalimantan – which smog has polluted the air in neighbouring countries, and was also recently detected in Jakarta.
JAKARTA – President Prabowo Subianto’s approval rating has fallen below 50 percent for the first time since he took office in October 2024, as public discontent over economic conditions, politics and law enforcement under his administration continues to grow.
A survey, conducted by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) this month, found that only 44.5 percent of respondents approved of the President’s performance, a nearly 7-percentage point drop in just three months from 51.1 percent in July. His approval rating stood at 66.4 percent in March and 81.2 percent last November.
SMRC executive director Deni Irvani noted that the declining approval rating stems from worsening public perceptions of the country’s economy, politics and law enforcement, with more respondents rating each area negatively than in previous surveys.
The state of the economy received the most negative assessments from respondents, with 50.8 percent of respondents saying the national economy to be in a “bad” or “very bad” state, up from 49.4 percent in July. Only around 17 percent viewed economic conditions positively, while 31 percent remained neutral.
Meanwhile, negative assessments of the country’s political climate and the current state of law enforcement also rose to 44.1 percent and 40.6 percent of respondents, respectively, up from 42.8 percent and 37.6 percent in July.
Deni of SMRC noted that a third of respondents attribute their perception to rising prices of necessities amid the government’s costly welfare programs, including the free nutritious meal program and the Red and White cooperatives.
“This result shows that there are now significantly more Indonesians who are dissatisfied [with the government] than those who are satisfied,” Deni said during the survey’s release on Friday, adding that there was “no apparent sign of a rebound” in Prabowo’s rating.
The SMRC polled from Oct. 1 to 10 more than 1,200 respondents of voting age nationwide, a majority of which were contacted on telephone and the rest through face-to-face interviews. The survey had a 2.9 percent margin of error at a 95 percent confidence level.
The survey came amid growing public frustration over the government’s handling of crises across the country, including prolonged wildfires in Kalimantan, which smog has polluted the air in neighboring countries and was recently detected in Jakarta.
The government has also faced criticism for refusing to declare the fires a national disaster. A coalition of civil groups called Sustainabilitas cited Health Ministry data that recorded nearly 300,000 cases of acute respiratory infections in fire-affected areas from mid-August to mid-October.
Political analyst Made Supriatma of the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute said the rating decline “reflects the [Prabowo] administration’s failure to resolve the ongoing crises”.
“This result shows a governance issue, not simply a matter of the administration failing to communicate them effectively [to the public],” Made said on Sunday.