We can also see that Prabowo’s leadership as Gerindra Party chairman has managed to elevate the electability of the party. This means that Prabowo has a coattail effect, where the party leader is able to influence the electability of his party.
Prabowo’s advantages other than his high electability is the fact that he has a party and he is able to boost Gerindra’s electability from one election to the other. The problem is there are presidential candidates who have high electability but do not have a party, like Anies Baswedan. While the requirement to join the presidential election is to have a party or is nominated by a party. “If we look at the electability of presidential candidates across all parties in Indonesia, the highest is Pak Prabowo,” he said.
In several surveys, many of Jokowi’s voters back in the 2019 presidential election chose Prabowo as a presidential candidate for 2024 out of sympathy. When Prabowo joined Jokowi’s cabinet after the 2019 election, their supporters are supposed to be united, but the reality is they are increasingly divided and the political polarization is aggravated. Many of Jokowi’s supporters in 2019 now lean toward Ganjar Pranowo, while Anies is preferred by Prabowo’s supporters in last election. In this situation, Prabowo can become the “middle path” or moderating force to reduce political polarization in the society. Prabowo was in the opposition camp from 2014 to 2019, but now that he joins the government, so the issue that will be brought up in 2024 is likely to be that he is a traitor. Instead, the survey proves that many of Jokowi’s voters in 2019 are sympathetic toward Prabowo’s decision.
Read: Post Jokowi, Prabowo seen as “moderating force” to reduce political polarization in 2024
“SPIN also conducted a survey asking respondents who voted in 2019 to choose between three candidates, namely Prabowo, Ganjar and Anies. The results were 8.8% of Jokowi-Ma’ruf’s voters will choose Prabowo, 14.4% will choose Prabowo-Sandi, and 12.4% will choose Ganjar Pranowo. But Prabowo-Sandi’s voters who will choose Ganjar Pranowo were only 2.8%,” he pointed out.
“Meanwhile, Jokowi-Ma’ruf’s voters who will choose Anies Baswedan were 6.3%. Anies was also supported by 5.6% of Prabowo-Sandi’s voters. This means that Prabowo voters are still loyal, plus he will get support from Jokowi’s voters. Jokowi-Ma’ruf’s voters who support Ganjar Pranowo are actually quite high, namely 12.4% but among Prabowo-Sandi’s voters Ganjar only managed to get 2.8%, meaning that Prabowo, with his military background and performance as defense minister, is the middle path to reduce the sharp political polarization in the society,” he continued.