JAKARTA: President Prabowo Subianto’s (pic) approval rating has fallen to barely 50 per cent, marking a sharp drop from the strong public support he enjoyed during his first year in office as Indonesians grow increasingly pessimistic about economic, political and law enforcement conditions, a new survey found.
The survey, conducted by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) this month, found that 51.1 per cent of respondents approved of the President’s performance, extending a downward trend in his approval rating from 81.2 per cent in November last year to 66.4 per cent in March.
Meanwhile, the number of those dissatisfied with his job performance has increased to 46.9 per cent, compared to 31.7 per cent in March this year and 16 per cent in November 2025.
The findings are a stark contrast to Prabowo’s first year in office, when his approval rating by various pollsters surpassed those of his predecessors Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the same stage of their presidencies, which respondents mainly attributed to Prabowo’s “firm leadership”.
The SMRC polled from July 5 to 19 nearly 750 respondents of voting age nationwide, 80 percent of which were contacted on telephone and the rest through face-to-face interviews. The survey had a 3.7 per cent margin of error at a 95 per cent confidence level.
During the survey’s release on Sunday, SMRC executive director Deni Irvani said Prabowo’s declining approval rating came from worsening “public evaluations of the current state of the country’s economy, politics and law enforcement.”
Economic conditions received the most negative response among the three areas in the survey, with nearly half of respondents, or 49.4 per cent, rating the economy as either “bad” or “very bad”.
Only 15.7 per cent of respondents described current economic conditions as “good” or “very good”, a sharp drop from 40 per cent in November. The share of respondents who were neutral stagnated at around 30 per cent.
“There were more than three times as many respondents who viewed the economy negatively as those who saw it positively,” Deni said.
“This confirms what many economists have argued: the headline economic growth figures do not necessarily reflect people’s economic conditions on the ground,” he added.
The survey comes as the Prabowo administration faces mounting economic challenges, including a weakening rupiah and purchasing power, as well as persistent concerns over policy uncertainty despite the government’s insistence to continue costly flagship progrmes such as the free nutritious meal programme.
Public perceptions of Indonesia’s political climate under Prabowo’s leadership also worsened, according to the poll, with negative assessments reaching 42.8 per cent against just 13.5 per cent positive views.
Some 33 per cent of respondents were neutral and the rest did not respond. The result marked a sharp reversal from November, when 35.8 per cent of respondents viewed the political conditions positively, while negative views stood at just 23 per cent. The share of those who were neutral or did not respond remained stable.
The survey also showed a weakening public confidence in law enforcement, with only 26.4 per cent of respondents viewing the current state of law enforcement positively, while 37.6 per cent considered it poor.
Deni said the decline may reflect recent incidents that have fuelled concerns over shrinking civic space under Prabowo’s administration, including the acid attack on rights activist Andrie Yunus by soldiers in May following Andrie’s criticism of the military.
He added that the corruption case in the free meals programe implicating the former head and two deputies of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) had likely contributed to the survey
“The findings confirm that the public senses the potential for corruption in the implementation of several government programmes, such as free meals and Red and White Cooperative programmes,” Deni said.
Another SMRC researcher Saidiman Ahmad pointed to the government’s increasingly negative responses toward academics and government critics as a factor behind these public concerns. Prabowo has drawn criticism in recent months for his response to dissent, including saying he wanted to put “unpatriotic” observers in order in March and referring to journalists as londo ireng, or “black Dutchmen”, last week, prompting condemnation from press groups
State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi and Government Communication Agency (Bakom) head Muhammad Qodari did not respond to requests for comment on Monday. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
