Support for Jokowi down as Indonesia tops daily Covid deaths

[JAKARTA] Indonesian President Joko Widodo's approval rating fell as the coronavirus continues to tear through the nation, pushing its daily Covid-19 death counts to become the worst in the world.

About 59.6 per cent of respondents are satisfied with how he's handling the pandemic, according to a survey released by Lembaga Survei Indonesia. That compares with 68.9 per cent in December, the survey showed. Those who are dissatisfied with him rose to 37.2 per cent from 28.9 per cent.

"Many still believe that the President can end this pandemic, but that trust level has declined, especially in the past four months," LSI, as the survey institute is known, said in the statement released on Sunday.

The most recent outbreak has overwhelmed hospitals and depleted the country's oxygen supply. As the highly transmissible delta variant spreads through Indonesia, at least 650 people have died at home while self-isolating because they couldn't get admission to hospitals, according to crowdsourcing platform LaporCovid19.

The country reported 1,338 additional fatalities on Monday, another daily record, according to health ministry data. There were 34,257 new confirmed cases, taking its total to almost 3 million.

"Covid has reduced people's satisfaction level toward the government, but a drop of 5 per cent-10 per cent isn't too significant because for the public this is a health issue, not a political issue," said Arya Fernandes, a political analyst at Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

People are divided in their opinion about whether the government should prioritise health over the economy, and more people are concerned about the state of the economy now than they were in September, LSI said.

Southeast Asia's biggest economy is racing against time to inoculate more than 180 million people against Covid-19 to reach herd immunity. About 84.9 per cent support the campaign and 68.6 per cent believe vaccine can help prevent the illness, according to the LSI survey.

Fear of side effects is the main reason for 36.4 per cent of respondents who don't want to get vaccinated.

There's been more than 57 million vaccinations in Indonesia, enough to cover about 11 per cent of its population, Bloomberg's Vaccine Tracker shows. That proportion is 48 per cent in the European Union and 53 per cent in the US.

Almost 83 per cent of respondents said they have not received their shots, according to the LSI survey. The survey conducted in March to June involved 1,200 respondents across the nation and was done via phone interviews, with a margin of error of +/- 2.88 per cent, according to the institute.

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