Hello friends!
We’ve got the first cawapres! (That is, Calon Wakil Presiden in Indonesia’s art of the acronym).
Besides that, the last few weeks have been overshadowed by Indonesia’s hosting of the Asean summit and its various offshoots. I took a crack at that over on Dari Mulut ke Mulut last week and join us there if you haven’t yet.
Okay let’s go,
Erin Cook
Anies Baswedan has made his vice presidential pick in Surabaya at the top of the month and it is Muhaimin Iskandar, better known as Cak Imin. The National Awakening Party (PKB) chairman and longtime political leader has historically been on the ‘potential picks’ lists for the last few runs.
If Anies is pleased with the pick, former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is furious. Shortly after the decision was announced, the Yudhoyonos’ Democrat Party formally severed ties with the coalition accusing it of ‘betrayal.’ Son and former Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono has long been gunning for the VP pick even as the message from the Anies camp was ‘we’re not promising anything.’
“I am not naive, there has never been anything like this. Politics is indeed full of tactics and strategies. But I did not expect that, after a year of fighting together, the strategy would go beyond moral and ethical boundaries in politics,” SBY said at the start of the month, as per Kompas (which is now using AI to translate stories into English, isn’t that interesting!)
Anies is still polling far behind frontrunners Prabowo Subianto and Ganjar Pranowo, but the announcement has prompted two key questions: Can Cak Imin buoy his odds, and who will the other two pick? Let’s crack into Cak Imin first.
‘Does the Anies-Muhaimin candidacy reveal a mutual desperation to consolidate power? Or is it a carefully considered marriage of convenience?’ asks Virdika Rizky Utama in Indonesia at Melbourne.
Anies finds support among Muslim modernists, Virdika writes, and Cak Imin has deep ties with the more traditionalist arm. Whether this means the duo can pick up a broad coalition of Muslim voters or splinter along the way with the two distinct cohorts wanting very different things for the country has finally brought some intrigue into the race. This will be particularly obvious in religious, social justice and foreign policies, Virdika suggests, where the differences can be polar.
This piece ought to be read in full, but I would like to highlight Virdika’s analysis of what this means for a potential NU endorsement. I plan to go deeper on NU at some stage in the coming weeks, but the abridged version for those not across the myriad of acronym organisations with enormous sway in Indonesia is this: Nahdlatul Ulama is the country’s largest religious organisation and an endorsement is key to winning big, particularly in Java.
Cak Imin has long been involved with the body but has not yet won an endorsement for 2024. It’s still early for the pair, but with the two leading candidates still mulling it over: “If another NU-affiliated candidate emerges, the ideological incompatibility of the Anies-Muhaimin pairing would, in all likelihood, split the NU vote,” Virdika writes.
Is the choice more evidence of President Joko Widodo’s immense sway over the election? Some analysts think so, according to a Tenggara Strategics commentary piece in the Jakarta Post today. “Soon after making a deal with Cak Imin, [coalition member] NasDem chairman Surya Paloh met with Jokowi at the State Palace on Aug. 31. Jokowi’s blessing is crucial to Surya if he wants to keep NasDem in the ruling coalition,” the agency writes. The piece also sheds some light on why Agus was not selected and it’s not that juicy, just pragmatic — Anies and Agus share much of the same support, so bringing Agus on board will not add many votes. Internal polling reportedly shows Cak Imin could help stop Anies’ gap in Central and East Java, where PKB carried the most votes in 2019.
There’s now renewed interest in who Ganjar and Prabowo will pick and features many of the same names that popped up in the past alongside Cak Imin. West Java’s popular governor, Ridwan Kamil, is back in the mix. He recently joined Golkar, the second-largest party, which has formed some sort of alliance with Gerindra, reports the Jakarta Post.
He’s the hot ticket. He’s linked now as a possible pick to Ganjar AND Prabowo and I simply have no idea. We’ve got to wait a little longer on this one. Yenny Wahid and Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD are also being seemingly courted by one or the other (or both). Interestingly, the more we hear about these established names, the less we hear about Jokowi’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
Elsewhere, the General Elections Commission (KPU) wants to bring up the registration period and cut the length, the Jakarta Post reports. Currently slated to open Oct. 19, the registration period will close Nov. 25. KPU would like it to run for just a week beginning Oct. 10. It is possible after a Perppu issued last year gives KPU more space to change the process and has found support both among parties and the government.