Indonesia candidates battle for Gen-Z votes on social media

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia’s presidential candidates are posting light content on social media in a push to appeal to young voters, dressing up like Tom Cruise in “Top Gun,” organizing dance contests or forgetting to turn off a livestream.

In a country where millennials and Gen-Zers make up more than half the electorate, candidates Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and former provincial governors Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo’s ages range from 54 to 72.

With the power to swing Indonesia’s youth vote, TikTok, Instagram and other platforms have become crucial tools in the arsenal of those vying to replace President Joko Widodo.

Indonesia is home to 278 million people, and 125 million are on TikTok alone.

“Today, the battlezone is on TikTok,” said Angga Putra Fidrian of Baswedan’s presidential team.

Facebook and Twitter were the dominant platforms in the 2019 election, but this time around the Chinese-owned app has become dominant.

After the first vice presidential debate last month, clips from the broadcast were viewed 300 million times in 12 hours on TikTok, with three-quarters uploaded by candidate-linked users, according to analyst Hokky Situngkir of social research institute Bandung Fe.

Videos of 72-year-old frontrunner Subianto dancing have flooded Indonesian social media accounts, transforming his image from a retired general accused of ordering the abduction of democracy activists in the late 1990s to “cute grandpa.”

His campaign for the presidency has held dance competitions to mimic him, offering a prize of hundreds of millions of rupiah (thousands of dollars).

“I see this phenomenon as a natural one,” said Subianto’s digital campaign coordinator Anthony Leong, adding that around 15,000 people are supporting his online campaign.