Prabowo Approval at 66% in IPO Poll, Yet Fails to Halt Polling Average Slide

JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — A nationwide poll released by Indonesia Political Opinion (IPO) shows 66% of respondents expressing satisfaction with the performance of President Prabowo Subianto as his administration reaches its two-year milestone.

According to the survey fielded between Oct. 12 and Oct. 20, 2026, IPO Executive Director Dedi Kurnia Syah reported that the headline approval figure consists of 61% who described themselves as satisfied and 5% who were very satisfied. Conversely, combined dissatisfaction stood at 34%, with 28% stating they were unsatisfied and 6% very unsatisfied.

"As many as 67 percent of respondents also expressed confidence that the President is capable of resolving priority national issues," Dedi said in an official briefing in Jakarta on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026.

For market observers tracking Southeast Asia’s largest economy, a sliding approval rating changes the policy calculus in ways that headline polling figures obscure. Rather than signaling a stable policy runway, the erosion of grassroots support exposes the growing friction between the administration’s populist agenda—such as the costly Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) initiative and the Red and White Village Cooperatives (KDMP)—and deteriorating kitchen-table economic realities.

Financial markets increasingly view these expansive programs as an unmanageable drain on sovereign coffers, one that threatens the statutory 3% budget deficit cap and narrows the fiscal headroom needed to cushion the domestic economy against intensifying global shocks. As the gap between public dissatisfaction and executive approval shrinks toward a dead heat, the palace may find its political space to sustain unchecked populist spending severely compressed, potentially forcing the executive’s hand toward painful expenditure cuts, targeted revenue measures, and long-delayed structural reforms to preserve fiscal credibility.

A Converging Statistical Dead Heat

Despite the strong print from IPO, comprehensive longitudinal modeling by Datatrust, the data division of Investortrust, reveals that the president's political standing remains caught in a clear, year-long downtrend.

Aggregating 31 nationwide surveys from 17 research houses since January 2025, the Datatrust polling average places October 2026 approval at 52.0% and disapproval at 44.8%. Because the 95% confidence and prediction intervals for both lines overlap, Datatrust calculates that there is no statistically significant difference between public approval and disapproval this month. The anticipated technical flip—where disapproval definitively overtakes approval—has not officially materialized, but the gap has effectively compressed into a dead heat.

The persistent erosion is further underscored by findings from Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) earlier in the month, which logged job approval falling below the psychological 50% barrier to 44.5%, with a 53.4% disapproval majority. The latest IPO finding sits as a high data point above the regression curve, but it does not alter the broader downward trajectory established across the polling landscape.

Institutional Trust Versus Job Performance

The current polling cycle also underscores an important distinction between general institutional trust and actual job approval. A recent survey by Voxpol Center recorded that 63.1% of the public expressed trust in the Prabowo administration, yet that figure measures baseline institutional credibility rather than direct satisfaction with day-to-day policy execution.

IPO's own diagnostic data shows that current approval rests heavily on traditional welfare buffers rather than macroeconomic strength. Among satisfied respondents, 19% cited active anti-corruption enforcement, 14.5% pointed to direct social assistance (bansos), and 10.7% credited tangible government work programs.

When asked to identify the nation's most urgent priorities, however, kitchen-table pressures dominated public sentiment. Controlling the prices of basic staple foods was cited by 28% of respondents as the most critical problem requiring government resolution, ahead of anti-corruption efforts at 19.5% and job creation at 14.7%. As household budgets absorb cost-of-living increases, pocketbook issues remain the primary anchor dragging on executive approval across the country.