JakartaPost-Oct 14, 2026
Public confidence that Indonesia is moving in the right direction has plunged during President Prabowo Subianto’s first two years in office, a new survey showed, amid growing dissatisfaction with the government’s performance and mounting concerns over political and economic conditions. The survey by pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC), which interviewed 1,213 respondents from Oct. 1 to 10, found that Indonesians who believed the country was moving in the right direction fell to 47.7 percent from 83 percent in October 2024, when Prabowo took office. Meanwhile, the number of respondents who believed the country was heading in the wrong direction rose to 34.3 percent, from 13 percent over the same period. The share of undecided respondents also increased from 5 percent to 18 percent. The survey had a 2.9 percent margin of error at a 95 percent confidence level. The figure marked the lowest level since the pollster began tracking public perceptions of the country’s direction in October 2010, when 70 percent of respondents said Indonesia was moving in the right direction during the second term of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The pollster founder Saiful Mujani described the findings as an “early, strong” warning for Prabowo’s administration, cautioning that growing public pessimism could eventually develop into a more tangible threat to national unity if the government fails to improve conditions.
“People could begin to question what the country actually does for them,” he said on the SMRC YouTube channel on Tuesday, warning that the declining public confidence in the country’s direction could develop into a more fundamental question about national belonging, including the value of being Indonesians. A survey by the think tank Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) and Shadow Cabinet, an independent initiative bringing together academics, activists and professionals to scrutinize government policies, meanwhile, gave the administration low marks for its first two years in office.
The Government Communications Agency (Bakom) did not respond to The Jakarta Post’s request for comment on the SMRC survey. Read more at:
https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2026/10/14/public-confidence-in-indonesias-direction-falls-under-prabowo-survey?utm_source=(direct)&utm_medium=home_headlines.
