🇮🇩 Polls are open in Indonesia

Okay, okay. And away we go! 

My Indonesia election newsletter plan fell on its arse for a variety of reasons, including, frankly, a bit of a concern about being too open in hot takes. So, no hot takes today just a look at what I’ve been thinking about and what I’m expecting or looking for in the weeks and months ahead. 

Indonesia’s electoral bodies are extraordinarily efficient so we should have a good idea of how things are shaping up based on the quick count by around 6 pm West Indonesia time. That’s 10 pm Canberra and 7 pm in Singapore, everyone else I don’t know.

This isn’t to tell you who will win. Anyone who says they know does not and all wise heads say they’re leaning one way or another but will not commit. This is not your 2019 race!

But this may seem less coherent to those who aren’t following the race closely. I was thrilled to be in Crikey this week (the last good Australian outlet!) with an explainer for audiences who want to know the outline. So if you’re getting your Prabowos and Pranowos mixed up, start there.

Will be back tomorrow with an update and then on Friday we better talk about Thaksin and Mahathir and whatever nonsense Rodrigo Duterte is sure to have gotten up to this week.

To run-off or not run-off?

That was the question a fortnight ago. The most recent polling shows Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka in a position to take the 50% threshold in one vote. The more level-headed friends all point to the consistent upward trend in support over the entire campaign and the reliability of particular pollsters as evidence. But, universally they say they would not be surprised if the ticket doesn’t clear and it does, in fact, go to a June run-off. 

If it does go to a run-off, holy smokes I don’t know what happens. It’s likely Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD would be eliminated, which would put PDI-P on the backfoot. There has been a drip of reports on the camp speaking with Anies Baswedan and Cak Imin, but with a certain tinge of cynicism that PDI-P might throw the toys out of the crib. This is where the DPR member race becomes very important — PDI-P has dominated the House, but with Jokowi’s star power pulling away from the party where they end up in the next term is a huge question mark. I’d hazard a guess that these results will impact the direction the party elite leans when it comes to coalition building. 

Interestingly, avoiding a run-off became a campaign message from the Prabowo-Gibran team. It’s too expensive (for who, exactly?) and drags things out. Not sure we’ll ever know, but I’d love to see if that has influenced voters.

But! Let’s just get through today and see what happens.

The cooling-off period has been a scorcher

Something remarkable happens as Indonesia switches into the three-day pre-vote cooling-off period. Overnight, thousands of banners and flags disappear from the roadside as everyone takes a moment to mull over their choices. Or that’s the idea, at least. Online campaigning has continued, though I guess that’s to be expected and I’m not sure what the rules say about that. 

What’s stunning me, however, is the extraordinary push in the last week to ten days coming from civil society in protest of how this race has shaped up. Three main incidents/groups stand out to me. Firstly, the academics. 

At the start of the month academic communities across the country teamed up and became very vocal in what Padjadjaran University (Unpad), Bandung, academics called exploitation by the political elite. They pointed to the Constitutional Court decision that allowed Gibran to run, as well as longer-running issues like the neutralising of the Corruption Eradication Commission: “Abusing power for the interests of the oligarchic elites will only lead to the failure of our sustainable development, the stagnation of economic growth, deepening poverty and the increase of wealth inequality,” Ganjar Kurnia, head of the university’s academic senate, told the Jakarta Post. 

Team Unpad was joined by colleagues at Gajah Mada University and Islam University of Indonesia, both in Yogyakarta, and at Depok’s University of Indonesia in protests. ‘In a written statement on behalf of the entire campus faculty, the University of Indonesia expressed its regret over the collapse of the legal system and democracy in the country,’ Tempo reported. 

“Everybody is allowed to speak up. They are welcome to express their opinion,” Jokowi said in response to the protestations. And Coordinator for Presidential Special Staff Ari Dwipayana, who probably has this line as a template on WhatsApp after the last few weeks, said: “The strategy of partisan politics is allowed in political contestation.” 

Then there’s the release of Dirty Vote. Group chats all over the country melted down Sunday as the newest documentary from Dandhy Laksono was forwarded. It is a long look at the decay of democracy in the country through conversations with academics and the linking of elite interests. For its part, the election supervisory agency Bawasalu is mentioned often as is the use of public funds in campaigning but says give it a watch and be informed. 

Much like Dandhy’s pre-2019 film, Sexy Killers, the response has fallen along partisan lines. To be expected, sure, but what’s really gotten people nervous is the (also, perhaps expected) reporting of Dandhy and three constitutional lawyers who took part in the film to the police. The Indonesian Santri Communication Forum alleges that because it was published during the cooling-off period, it violated election laws. Not sure constitutional experts are the type you’d want to take on for this argument, but we’ll see what happens. 

And then, finally, there’s the really grassroots stuff. Small protests across the country have featured things like, uh, Jokowi depicted in a guillotine, paste-ups specifically targeting Prabowo’s record and plenty of calls for people to take the power back. This is very intriguing to me. As we know, Indonesia loves a demo. But in my limited experience of the last decade, these have typically been student-led and against specific incidents like the Omnibus bill or football supporters using their immense numbers to call for leagues to be cleaned up. This already feels different, more existential. You don’t need to complete Duolingo to understand signs against ‘dinasti’ ‘oligarki’ and ‘nepotisme.’ You may need it for the red graffiti that’s appeared all over the city screaming ‘tolak paslon pembunuh,’ but I’ve been too nervous to be spotted snapping that. 

Broad strokes leave gaps

I'm thinking of Anies Baswedan here. With limited international coverage and even more limited words, there simply has not been enough available to explore the second bet. And that's on bureau not reporters, to be clear. 

A focus on Prabowo is understandable and correct, he's the front-runner with a multi-decade record to be distilled in just a few short paragraphs. But to miss Anies’ 2017 run for Jakarta governor is to miss an enormous part of the conversation among voters. 

Anies’ campaign back in the day saw him team up with the more fringe elements of Indonesia's Islamist wing that was targeting then-Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known as Ahok. The Chinese Christian governor had taken on the role after predecessor Jokowi threw his hat in the ring for president in 2014. Ahok was eventually jailed on blasphemy charges for comments made about the Qur'an at a taped event. That was sticky enough, but the protests, led by groups like the infamous FPI, were deeply racialised and brought back some very scary memories for Chinese Indonesians who lived through 1998 in the capital. Very early on in his campaign last year Anies met with former FPI leader Rizieq Shihab  (he's a whole other newsletter) and moderate eyeballs across the country rolled. 

Anecdotally, there are a lot of Chinese-Indonesian families split over who to vote for. Last weekend's Lunar New Year feasts saw plenty of families debating over who to pick and a surprisingly large portion of friends report relatives saying ‘never, no way’ to Anies and selecting Prabowo instead. 

Ahok’s endorsement of Ganjar hasn't appeared to change the conversation much at all. Timed beautifully for maximum New Year feasting table conversation, it hasn't really worked — again, anecdotally and we should see more in the coming weeks of how this breaks down.