Indonesian Firm Quits Association over Poll Dispute

In Jakarta, polling firm Poltracking Indonesia has announced it is withdrawing from the industry association Persepi, following controversy over major discrepancies between its figures and those of another firm, concerning voting intentions for a forthcoming Jakarta gubernatorial election.

Residents of Jakarta will go to the polls to choose their next governor on November 27th. Results were published on October 24th from a survey the previous week by Poltracking, giving candidate Ridwan Kamil the lead on 51.6% of the vote - in sharp contrast with figures published a day earlier by the Indonesian Survey Institute (Lembaga Survei Indonesia or LSI), putting Ridwan on just 37.4%, behind another candidate, Pramono Anung. Sample size for both polls was 1,200.

Persepi (the Indonesian Public Opinion Survey Association) announced an enquiry into the methods of both companies, and subsequently raised questions about discrepancies in Poltracking's data, barring the company from reporting on future surveys without prior approval from the association's ethics council. The ethics council itself was set up in 2009 after an earlier controversy, surrounding the close relations between pollsters and specific political parties.

In response to the association's actions, Poltracking has now said it will cancel its membership, with its Executive Director Hanta Yuda (pictured) stating yesterday: 'We hope Persepi will issue a public apology, as this has tarnished our reputation'. Yuda said the association has misinterpreted differences between raw and processed data from the same survey as inconsistencies, adding: 'Perhaps they were unable - or unwilling - to delve deeply into our data and made a hasty decision'.

The story is at https://jakartaglobe.id/news/poltracking-withdraws-from-pollster-association-amid-jakarta-election-survey-dispute and the polling companies are online at www.poltracking.com and www.lsi.or.id .