Pollster: SBY remains most popular candidate for president

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) remains the most popular candidate for the presidential election on July 8, according to the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI).

LSI senior researcher Burhanudin Muhtadi said at a discussion on "SBY`s Running Mate: Technocrat or Politician" here on Wednesday that SBY was still ranked first by the public no matter who would be his running mate in the election.

"According to the latest results of the survey carried out at random on April 19-26 involving 2,000 respondents aged 17 years and above, SBY collected most of the votes," he said.

According to the survey results from 33 provinces in the country SBY collected 65 percent of the votes if he paired up with Sri Mulyani (finance minister), 66.4 percent with Jusuf Kalla ( vice president), 66.7 percent with Aburizal Bakrie (cabinet minister) and 66.1 percent with noted politician Akbar Tanjung.

Megawati from the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI) only garnered 21 to 23 percent of votes if she paired up with former military figure Prabowo from the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) while Wiranto, also a former military figure from the People`s Conscience Party (Hanura) could only collect 4.0 to 5.0 percent with Hidayat Nur Wahid, an Islamic figure.

Based on results of survey in March 2009 the SBY-Hatta Rajasa (cabinet minister) ticket meanwhile collected 61.2 percent while Megawati-Sultan Hamengkubuwono (public figure) only 23.1 percent.

"The survey results showed SBY remained at the top no matter who he would be paired up with," he said.

He said SBY`s top popularity was one of the factors that made the prefer him, adding no others is more popular than SBY.