Posters of rival tickets for mayor of Depok, a commuter city 40 minutes by train south of Jakarta where many of its 2.4 million residents work.Credit: Warief D. Basorie

By Warief Djajanto Basorie
JAKARTA, Dec 8 2020 (IPS)

In just over a day, on 9 December, Indonesia holds 270 simultaneous local elections for executive office. This involves nine of the republic’s 34 governors, 224 of 416 bupati (district chiefs) and 37 of 98 mayors. The polling was initially scheduled for 23 September but the independent KPU (General Elections Commission) put the date back to 9 December due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this batch of local polling, 105 million Indonesians aged 17 and above in this nation of 268 million people are eligible to vote.

Like the national election for president, local office elections are rigorously contested since the end of the 32-year authoritarian rule of President Soeharto in 1998.

During his prolonged regime, Soeharto appointed the country’s governors, mayors and district chiefs to maintain unopposed power through office loyalty. Many active military officers got such appointments in line with the-then dwifungsi (dual function) concept of the armed forces. Uniformed personnel concurrently had a military and a social-political role.

In post-Soeharto Indonesia, with the passing of a democratic election bill, the president no longer makes such arbitrary appointments. Moreover, the dual-function practice has ceased. Now, the run for legislative and executive public office is highly competitive.

Dynasty

What has aroused attention in this election-cycle is not so much how the coronavirus scourge affects the electoral process but more on who are in the running. The move of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s first son to enter the political arena has drawn public attention and apprehension.

Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the elder of Jokowi’s two sons, is running for mayor in Surakarta, Jokowi’s hometown in Central Java and where he himself was a mayor.

At present there are 117 heads and deputy heads of local government in Indonesia tied into a dynasty-making relationship.

The Constitutional Court permits politics by affinity, notes Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyati, executive director of election watchdog Perludem, the Association for Elections and Democracy.

“What must be done is that its bad effects must be prevented where the space for competition becomes unequal,” she stated.

Banner of Depok City elections commission calls on residents to vote for mayor 9 Dec 2020. Top middle line in Bahasa Indonesia reads: Let’s vote for Depok City. Credit: Warief D. Basorie

“It is not seldom when long-time party cadres must be bested by those who have a kinship with party elite. For sure, this is unhealthy for democracy. Internal party reform must be undertaken to allow for recruitment with integrity,” she asserted.

“The meritocracy principle with the aspects of worthiness and competence is an absolute condition to back a candidate of quality,” states political communication scholar M. Jamiluddin Ritonga at Esa Unggul University.

Party cadre development is important. Give at least 10 years before a party cadre becomes a candidate for an executive or legislative office, insists political communcation lecturer Emrus Sihombing at Pelita Harapan University.

Political corruption

Corruption is on watchdog radar screens.

Candidates may need as much as USD1.5 million to USD7.5 million for their individual campaigns, according to one estimate. Cash-short candidates may get help from political financiers. If the candidate wins, the financier demands pay-back in the form of business concessions.

Elected office-holders have been caught in political corruption. KPK (Corruption Eradication Commission) has detected and prosecuted 21 governors entangled in corruption from 2004 to July 2020. For the same period, 122 district chiefs, mayors, deputy district chiefs, and deputy mayors also got ensnared.

Stationary democracy

Single-ticket contests is also a searing issue. This is when a candidate faces no challenger. KPU identified 25 such tickets. The election law states a party or a coalition can field a candidate if they have at least 20% of the legislative seats won in the previous election.

Say, the candidate mayor garners the support of parties that jointly have more than 80% of the seats in the local legislature. Thus, any remaining parties together don’t have the minimum 20% seat-count to support a rival ticket. When this happens, that single ticket competes with a kotak kosong (blank box).

If the empty box wins the contest, the local KPU office would hold a new election that would have more than one ticket.

An empty box won the contest for mayor of Makassar in a 2018 local election. The KPU Makassar office is holding a second election this year with four tickets.

Single-ticket polling does not foster democracy as democracy thrives and throbs through competition.

With political party failure to promote meritocracy, corruption and unchallenged electoral contests, Indonesia’s democracy is not marching forward.

Significance

Indonesia’s democracy is imperfect. The local election process is wanting. However, the significance of Indonesia’s local elections is that they are a proving ground for national leadership. Surakarta city mayor Jokowi succesfully ran to be Jakarta governor in 2012. Two years later, in 2014 Jokowi stood for president and won.

Local election winners can stand for president in 2024. Front runners are Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil, and Central Java Ganjar Pranowo.

Competition would be tough with established national-level figures. One is Prabowo Subianto, Jokowi’s opponent in 2014 and 2019. Another is businessman and former Jakarta vice-governor Sandiaga Uno who was Prabowo’s running-mate in 2019. A third is DPR speaker Puan Maharani.

Puan is daughter of Megawati Sukarnoputri, general chair of the Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle (PDI-P), the largest party in parliament. Megawati was the nation’s fifth president (2001-2004). Puan is also granddaughter of Indonesia’s founding father and first president, Sukarno. If Puan makes it, she would be a dynastic third-generation president in the making.

Warief Djajanto Basorie is Instructor, Dr Soetomo Press Institute (LPDS), Jakarta

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By Warief Djajanto Basorie
JAKARTA, May 12 2017 (IPS)

Remove one word in the narrative. You hit your target with a two-year jail sentence.

Governor of Jakarta Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, widely know as Ahok, was the target. After a six-month trial, the North Jakarta District Court on May 9 sentenced him to two years in jail with immediate imprisonment for defamation of religion. It was a double blow within a month.

On April 19 Ahok lost his bid for reelection as governor of this metropolis of 10 million people to former education minister Anies Baswedan.

Ahok’s change in fortune occurred on Sept 27 2016. Surveys up to then showed Ahok was a shoe-in to win reelection. He had garnered one-million-plus signatures of support from eligible voters in Indonesia’s capital, collected by a non-party volunteers group. His popularity was on a high for his clean government stance and success in delivering services. And the Jakarta race is centrally crucial.

The importance of the Jakarta governorship is that it’s a proven path to the presidency. The proof is in President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo who was previously Jakarta’s governor 2012-2014. As Jokowi did not complete his five- year governorship, Ahok as his deputy, succeeded Jokowi as governor.

On that clear Tuesday morning, Sept 27, Governor Ahok travelled to Pramuka Island in the Thousand islands group off the coast of North Jakarta. The trip was to celebrate a karapu fish harvest but the event turned to be a pre-campaign delivery.

Indonesia is a Muslim-majority nation of 250 million people. Ahok is of Chinese descent and a Christian, a double minority. Apparently Ahok did not perceive the consequences when he cited a verse in the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, in light of the coming gubernatorial campaign.

“You know, perhaps in the back of your mind, you feel you can’t vote for me. Because you were fooled to use Al Maidah (verse) 51 …,” Ahok remarked off-the-cuff of opposing politicians who might use Islam’s holy scripture against him.

Al Maida (The Table Spread) , the fifth surah (chapter) in the Qur’an, has 120 ayat or verses. The verse in question is verse 51.

In essence Al Maida verse 51 calls on the faithful not to accept a non-Muslim as their leader.

On Oct 6 a Jakarta academic reviewed Ahok’s statement in video and concluded Ahok has committed blasphemy. Communication studies scholar Buni Yani uploaded a clip of the video and its transcript on his Facebook account. It stirred a storm.

“All of you (Muslim voters) were fooled by Al Maidah (verse) 51 …”. This is the quote in Buni Yani’s transcript.

The difference with the original quote is that Buni Yani’s transcript does not have the word “use” (pakai in Indonesian). At a talk show on TV One Oct 11, the academic confessed he erred in transcribing the remarks the Jakarta governor made.

Buni admitted he excluded the word “use” because he asserted he did not wear a headset to listen to the statement of Governor Basuki. But the damage has been done.

Buni’s 31-second video clip with provocative commentary can be described as a “post-truth” message where the narrative appeals to emotion disconnected from facts. The talking point continues eventhough the message is found to be misleading.

Oxford Dictionaries on Nov 15 has declared “post-truth” as its 2016 international word of the year, reflecting what it called a “highly-charged” political 12 months.

Buni Yani’s belated admission of verbal exclusion in his posted video could not repair the damage and restrain what was to come. Nor the public apology Ahok made in gatherings and on television over his misconceived Sept 27 remarks.

The omission of a single word was one element that drove a sea of white-clad mostly men on Nov 4 to flood the multi-lane streets off Jakarta’s Monas Square. The Square in Central Jakarta separates Freedom Palace, the president’s residence to its north, and City Hall, the governor’s office to its south.

Led by the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and other hardline groups, the mass rally demanded Ahok’s arrest and criminal prosecution for defaming Islam.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo read out a midnight statement slamming the street violence and damage before the palace gates that ensued that night. He stated “political actors” were behind the mayhem that caused one death.

On Nov 16 the chief for criminal investigation of the National Police, three-star Police Commissioner General Ari Dono Sukmanto, declared Ahok a suspect in an alleged act of blasphemy. This followed intense investigation culminating in a 10-hour case screening that heard testimony Nov 15.

On Dec 2 another huge rally took place. Like the one before, it was held on a Friday to create a great mass after noon public prayers at the capital’s mosques.

On Dec 13 Ahok went to his first of 22 hearings of his blasphemy trial.

On May 9 2017 Dwiarso Budi Santiarto, chief of the five-judge panel, read out the court’s verdict. Ahok is found guilty of violating Article 156a of the Criminal Code on defaming a religion. The sentence is two years with immediate imprisonment.

The bench’s decision goes beyond the prosecutors’ demand for a year in jail with a 2-year probation. Ahok appealed.

The convicted governor was quickly bundled to the Cipinang Prison in East Jakarta. Later in the evening Ahok was transferred to the police mobile brigade compound in Depok, south of Jakarta, “for safety,” the Cipinang warden said.

Th court’s verdict triggered an outcry of grief among Ahok supporters. They gathered in front of the courthouse, the prison, City Hall and on Wednesday night May 10, they held a candle-lit vigil at Proclamation Park, central Jakarta, where Indonesia’s first president Soekarno declared Indonesia’s independence Aug 17 1945. Similar vigils assembled in Manado and Waingapu, Christian majority centers in Eastern Indonesia.

“#Save Ahok” and “#Free Ahok” were the twitter hash tags. Many of the supporters at City Hall were red-clad women. Some in red and white, the national colors. Men wore the plaited colored shirts of Ahok’s campaign.

Ahok opponents approved the verdict. In front of the court venue, wearing white garb, they cried out in triumph and knelt on the ground in gratitude.

President Jokowi called for all to respect the legal process.

“I request all parties to respect the legal process, the verdict that was read out, and also to respect the steps taken by Mr Basuki Tjahaja Purnama,” Jokowi stated.

Defence lawyer I Wayan Sudarta didn’t mince words. He told The Jakarta Post the verdict was politically driven and unacceptable.

Ahok lost votes because of the trial. The rumor mill was rife of moves to mess with the president.

Further to Jokowi’s midnight statement Nov 4 on the activity of “political actors”, Coordinating Minister for Politcal, Legal and Security Affairs Wiranto announced May 8, the day before the Ahok verdict, that the government seeks to ban by legal means the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, an organization that calls for an Islamic caliphate.

HTI’s disbandment is justified as its existence is against the Constitution and Indonesia’s state ideology, Pancasila (The Five Tenets), State Intelligence Chief Budi Gunawan stated.

Indeed, the legal process and the political dynamics in Indonesia comes under scrutiny. The big raucous demonstrations outside the court house and the mass rallies demanding Ahok’s conviction contrasting against the pro-Ahok vigils raise the spectre of social unrest, if not disunity.

Interfaith leaders in Indonesia’s have repeatedly called for tolerance to safeguard the sanctity of the national credo, Bhinekka Tunggal Ika, unity in diversity.

This is a testing time for Indonesia where minorities in religion like the Ahmadis and Syiahs face discrimination as well as LGBTs. Papua in the Eastern end of Indonesia is another issue where a movement seeks separation.

As Indonesian citizens, they want equal rights under the Constitution to express their case. Article 28E(3) of the Constitution states: “Every person shall have the right to the freedom of association and expression of opinion.”

All sections in the nation have a stake to make Indonesia a truly peaceful, just and inclusive society, to paraphrase the theme of World Press Freedom Day 2017 that Jakarta hosted early May.

To ward off any communal conflict that could arise from the Ahok case, one voice of moderation comes from a Muslim cleric in Depok, 20 km south of Jakarta. On the Sunday before the Ahok verdict, in a post-morning prayer sermon, he stated that those who bring up Al Maideh verse 51 must also acknowledge the message in verse 8 of the same chapter.

“Let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice.” The cleric explained Muslims must treat people of other faiths with justice.

The statements and views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of IPS.

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