Hard-line Islamists shadow 2019 election
Analysts fear a return of sectarian violence
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s presidential election next year will be a rematch of the contentious 2014 contest, and analysts fear it will see a return of the smear campaigns and sectarian intolerance that marred that vote.
On Friday, President Joko Widodo and his 2014 opponent, former army Gen Prabowo Subianto, both filed paperwork declaring their intent to run in the election next April. Friday was the deadline for registration, and no others did.
It will be Indonesia’s fourth direct presidential election since the country’s democratic era began in 1998, after the fall of Suharto, the authoritarian president who ruled for decades.
Analysts feared the election would be blighted by social media campaigns of the kind seen in 2014, which falsely asserted that Mr Joko — widely known as Jokowi — was an ethnic Chinese Christian. (He is a Muslim of Javanese descent.) The small but influential ethnic Chinese community is resented by many Indonesians, and it has suffered persecution and state-sponsored discrimination in the past.
A prominent ally of Mr Joko, former Jakarta Gov Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who is of Chinese descent, was imprisoned for blasphemy last year after Islamic groups mounted a campaign against him. Those groups — some of which are allied with Mr Prabowo’s opposition Gerindra party — are likely to turn their sights on the president as the election approaches, some analysts said.
“They will be looking around for sure to pick up on some religious-based scandal,” said Stephen Sherlock, a professor of politics at the University of New South Wales who studies Indonesia.
Mr Joko, 57, who was born in a Central Java slum and sold furniture before becoming a popular Jakarta governor, won the presidency in 2014 with 53% of the vote. Reputable opinion polls during the past year have consistently put his approval rating above 50%, sometimes as high as 70%, and he is largely seen as having lived up to his promises to fight corruption and improve the country’s lagging infrastructure.
“What we have been doing is four years of proof — and proof is not fiction,” Mr Joko said on Friday at the office of the General Elections Commission in Jakarta after submitting his paperwork. “This is the foundation that has been built, that still needs to be connected, that still needs to be continued.”
Recent surveys have put the president far ahead of Prabowo, by margins of 15 to 20 percentage points. But Mr Basuki, the president’s now-jailed ally, also had a double-digit poll lead in his campaign for re-election as Jakarta’s governor before Islamic groups began campaigning against him in earnest.
The Islamic organisations took offence to a Quran verse that Mr Basuki quoted during a speech, as part of an argument that it was acceptable for Muslims to vote for a non-Muslim candidate. The Islamic groups staged street demonstrations in Jakarta against the governor, including one in November 2016 that became violent.
Mr Basuki lost the April 2017 runoff election to Anies Baswedan, a member of Mr Prabowo’s party. Weeks later, Mr Basuki was convicted for blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison.
Mr Prabowo and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, were suspected of orchestrating the protests against Mr Basuki to weaken Mr Joko, allegations that both men denied. (Mr Susilo’s son, Agus Yudhoyono, was also a candidate in the Jakarta governor election.)
Some analysts saw the campaign against Mr Basuki as a “dress rehearsal” for the presidential contest.
“Will religion be used as a card and be dangerous over time? I definitely think so,” said Benedict Rogers, the East Asia team leader for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a rights organisation based in Britain.
Mr Joko selected Ma’ruf Amin as his running mate, seemingly in hopes of warding off attacks from hard-line activists. Mr Ma’ruf, 75, is the chairman of the Indonesia Ulema Council, the country’s largest body of clerics, which supported the prosecution of Mr Basuki.
Mr Prabowo, 66, is a former son-in-law of Suharto, the late dictator. He ran against Mr Joko in 2014 on a platform of strong leadership and economic nationalism.
“We fight for the rights of all Indonesians regardless of their ethnicity, religion, and race,” Mr Prabowo said after filing his campaign paperwork.
Mr Prabowo has been accused of committing human rights abuses during his military career, including extrajudicial killings and the disappearances of prodemocracy activists in 1997 and 1998. He has denied the allegations and has never been charged with a crime in connection with them.