Detailed Explanation Needed to Answer Public Skepticism

KOMPAS/WISNU WIDIANTORO

Vice presidential candidate number 01 KH Ma’ruf Amin (left) and vice presidential candidate number 02 Sandiaga Uno walk toward their seats after the Declaration of Peace Campaign for the 2019 simultaneous elections at the National Monument, Jakarta, Sunday (23/9/2018). In the event they declared a campaign against the politicization of SARA (ethnicity, religion and race) issues, money politics and the spread of hoaxes.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The two vice-presidential candidates in the 2019 presidential election are to face public skepticism when they discuss populist issues in the third presidential debate in Jakarta on Sunday (tomorrow).Therefore, the two vice-presidential candidates need to submit detailed narratives on the issues that are considered crucial, such as the need to provide employment and education facilities.

The third presidential debate is to feature only the two vice-presidential candidates: Ma’ruf Amin, the running mate of incumbent Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, and Sandiaga Uno, the running mate of Prabowo Subianto.

They are to discuss education, health, employment, social issues and culture. The public skepticism was found in a survey conducted by Kompas Research and Development on March 13 and 14 that involved 528 respondents in 16 major cities in Indonesia.

The survey indicates there are a lot of doubts about the ability of the two candidates to fix a number of problems in the fields of education and employment. As many as 30.1 percent of the respondents said they doubted the ability of Jokowi and Ma’ruf to improve infrastructure and education facilities in remote areas if they were elected in the upcoming election.

Meanwhile 39.8 percent of the respondents indicated they were not sure there would an improvement of the condition of infrastructure and education facilities if Prabowo and Sandiaga won the election. More skepticism was seen in the ability to provide employment. As many as 49.2 percent of the respondents said they were not sure that the employment problem could be resolved if Jokowi and Amin were elected and 39.6 percent of the respondents said they did not believe there would be an improvement if Prabowo and Sandi won the election.

KOMPAS/WISNU WIDIANTORO

The two presidential and vice-presidential candidate pairs Joko Widodo-KH Ma\'ruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno read out the words written by General Elections Commission chairperson Arief Budiman and General Elections Supervisory Board chairperson Abhan during the Declaration of Peaceful Campaigns for the 2019 simultaneous elections in National Monument (Monas) park, Jakarta, Sunday (23/9/2018). In the event they declared a campaign against the politicization of SARA (ethnicity, religion and race) issues, against money politics and the spread of hoaxes.

Related to the people’s skepticism, the director of the center for political studies at the University of Indonesia, Aditya Perdana, said in Jakarta on Friday that the two vice-presidential candidates needed to explain their programs for resolving the employment and education problems in detail during the debate.

According to him, the two vice-president candidates needed to use reliable data to face the public skepticism. "The elaboration of the data provided by their respective campaign teams and the ability to clearly explain their programs will very decisive for the vice presidents in the debate,” Aditya said.

Meanwhile, an economist from the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), Eko Listiyanto, said Indonesia\'s employment situation still experienced a structural problem as it was still dominated by people who had, at the most, only graduated from junior high school. The majority of them still depend on the agricultural sector, whose contribution to the economy continues to decline.

Focus of debate

Ma\'ruf is to outline efforts to strengthen vocational education. One of them is the effort to resolve the mismatch between the skills provided by the vocational high schools and the needs of the industries in regions, said the director of the Jokowi-Ma’ruf national campaign team, Aria Bima,

With such a program, productive age workers would be able to fill vacant positions in local industries in accordance with the characteristics of each region so that the unemployment problem can be resolved, he said.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Prabowo-Sandiaga national campaign team, Andre Rosiade, said Sandiaga would deliver the details of a program for creating employment, especially for the younger generations. "We made sure there will be a surprise program to be delivered in the debate," Andre said.

In the education sector, said the national coordinator of the education monitoring network, Ubaid Matraji, the unfair distribution of education assistance should be addressed by the two vice-president candidates.

KOMPAS/WISNU WIDIANTORO

Vice presidential candidate number 01 KH Ma’ruf Amin (left) and vice presidential candidate number 02 Sandiaga Uno walk toward their seats after the Declaration of Peace Campaign for the 2019 simultaneous elections at the National Monument, Jakarta, Sunday (23/9/2018). In the event they declared a campaign against the politicization of SARA (ethnicity, religion and race) issues, money politics and the spread of hoaxes.

Aria Bima acknowledged that a number of educational assistance programs provided by the government did not reach the targeted recipients because the database of those entitled to receive was inaccurate. He said this would be corrected with a date update and validation.

Meanwhile, Andre said Sandiaga is to unveil his plan to standardize the salaries of contract teachers according to the regional minimum wages. In addition, Prabowo and Sandiaga say they plan to build an education system that prioritizes the formation of national character with a program of character development from the early years. (AGE/SAN/MED/DNE)