Can Prabowo keep the dance music going until Feb. 14?
Can Prabowo keep the dance music going until Feb. 14?
North Sumatra, Malaysia and some intriguing billboards
Hello friends!
November has been a weird month. After the initial excitement of the registration period and the brief production put on by the KPU, it’s a bit of a lull before the real horse race officially begins, uh, tomorrow.
For now, frontrunner Prabowo Subianto is dominating the conversation still. Poor old Ganjar Pranowo can’t get a look in and I rarely hear about Anies Baswedan except from Jakarta’s fleet of taxi drivers who are very keen to talk about why they want him to lead. In fact, we had a great conversation on Saturday night in which the very chatty driver had to be coaxed into confessing he’d previously voted for President Jokowi, seemingly so hard in support for Anies.
This newsletter project is for foreign readers like myself trying to follow along from abroad. I’ve got some great ideas about what I’d like to cover up until Feb. 24, but I’d love to hear from you if there’s something you’d like to get to the bottom of! My credibility claim to this project isn’t that I know so much about the election (omg it is not that) but rather that I know so many brilliant people to ask and they’re all very generous with their time and expertise!
Okay, let’s crack in.
Prabowo’s moves
Prabowo Subianto is dancing his way towards Istana, literally. The Prabowo-Gibran Rakabuming Raka ticket has dominated so decisively that the question is, as posed by Amy Sood for SCMP, if he “can maintain his groove until the election in February, or whether his rivals can find a way to change the beat.”
His Golkar Party is feeling good: “Without meaning to be arrogant, if there is no fraud, we are sure that the Prabowo-Gibran pair can win in one round,” a senior party member said last week. I think that’s a touch too optimistic at this stage, but is revealing of how high spirits are. (More on this below)
WhatsApp groups across the city popped off last week after the appearance of billboards featuring Prabowo and Gibran along Jakarta’s thoroughfares. They feature the pair in AI-generated Pixar-like portraits that have been popular online for at least the last month. Supporters of all three pairs candidates teams have been using the tools to generate posts like this (I’m sorry to say it but the Mahfud MD and Anies Baswedan entries seem particularly cute, I think it’s the glasses) but this is the first instance I’ve seen of it going IRL.
This leans straight into Prabowo’s rebrand as ‘gemoy’ — a word that is still not quite defined (ask half a dozen friends, get half a dozen vaguely different answers) but as one Indonesian friend categorically put it, it’s ‘a demented way of saying gemes,’ meaning something so cute and adorable.
Much has been made already, including from myself, about the Prabowo rebrand. No longer is he the tough-talking, macho army general with human rights abuse allegations and yelling from the pulpit. Or at least he wants Indonesia to think that. Interestingly, I’m not sure whether this was a deliberate move from his campaign or a popular push that was then embraced by Team Prabowo. The Team say that it was ‘organic’ but whatever its origins, it’s working.
This is not good, says the progressive flank. By presenting himself to young voters as the country’s sweet beloved grandfather, it neutralises legitimate concerns about Prabowo’s history and, the most pessimistic say, could easily create a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ situation. Notably, Prabowo-Gibran stands in contrast to the other two tickets in that they did not include even a reference to human rights in their election manifestos. The right-wingers aren’t impressed either. PKS heavy hitter Sohibul Iman, whose party is backing Anies Baswedan-Cak Imin, called it a gimmick and said it was “unhealthy” for Indonesian democracy.
But! That is the public-facing Prabowo. In party events, his image remains hyper-masculine. These events aren’t closed doors and are reported widely and reposted to social media, but it is very much For The Boys. While campaigning, his outfits are a stark contrast from the 2014 and 2019 ensembles, featuring powder blue shirts and finger hearts popularised by K-pop stans while the peci has become less of a staple. But at smaller events, he is still very much the 2010s Prabowo in his signature white shirt, impeccable posture and behind the wheel of a jeep. This is also evident in his role as defence minister, which he clearly relishes.
I’m certain some of the brilliant women researchers of Indonesia are at work on decoding the masculinity in the race and I’m excited to see what they come up with. I also think there are some fascinating parallels here with the extremely successful Bongbong Marcos campaign in the Philippines last year. He also would tailor his presentation of masculinity depending on what crowds he was addressing and the ‘softer’ side did wonders for his moderate supporters, alongside the harder edge needed to win over the Duterte boys.
How likely is a one-and-done vote?
At this stage, not likely, writes Tenggara Strategics in their regular analysis for the Jakarta Post today. Surveys have the Prabowo-Gibran ticket incrementally climbing, particularly at the expense of Ganjar-Mahfud MD, but it’s unlikely they’ll reach the 50% threshold needed to carry it in the first round. Populi Centre survey data shows that while the Gerindra camp might be keen for a Prabowo win outright, voters are widely behind a second round.
The son-in-law
Medan Mayor and Jokowi’s son-in-law, Bobby Nasution, is reportedly looking to move up the food chain in Sumatra and Golkar is keen to get him there. Bobby was dumped from his PDI-P home after the brothers-in-law defected and joined Prabowo’s Gerindra.
“Golkar has proposed for Bobby to run as the gubernatorial candidate in the North Sumatra Election. We also issued a letter [proposing his candidacy] in the Medan mayoral election,” Golkar North Sumatra branch secretary Ilhamsyah said last week, as per the Jakarta Post.
For his part, Bobby says he’s not focusing on all that just yet. But it has added an intriguing second element to the dynastic ambitions of Jokowi’s family. Is North Sumatra to be the next stronghold?
Putting on a show in Kuala Lumpur
Once Mekel is used to touring with his band Dewa 19, but his appearance in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month was less showbiz, more politicking. He’s running as a legislative candidate with PDI-P and is one of many candidates with an eye on shoring up overseas votes. Around 832,420 Indonesian voters live and work in Malaysia, with hundreds of thousands of others elsewhere around the world especially in the Middle East, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
“Overseas voters have a huge influence (in the elections) because they can determine whether a candidate gets elected or not. For example, a candidate needs 140,000 votes to win one seat in parliament ... and there are so many competitors,” former journalist turned Democrat candidate Syahrial Nasution told Amy Chew at Nikkei Asia.
This is very good news for anyone interested in migrant worker rights. Stories of abuses abroad, especially for domestic workers, are rife and a focus on these exact workers could see stronger policy protections and assistance in the long run.
The son always rises
I think we’re just about ready to move on from the rolling updates on Jokowi’s dynasty building via eldest son Gibran and Kaesang Pangarep, now leading PSI, but I did want to flag this one from Liam Gammon in Inside Story. “Take a moment to appreciate the sheer chutzpah Jokowi is showing in all this: putting one of his sons in control of a party whose principal strategy is to steal votes from PDI-P and putting another into a presidential campaign whose strategy involves poaching votes from PDI-P’s candidate — all while he himself is still a card-carrying member of the party.” Well, when you put it like that!
Your comment on Ganjar reminds me of something. I'm a Quora Top Writer, having written many answers on Indonesia in the past. About a year and a half ago, I was approached on the platform by a self-described digital marketer to do compensated writing talking about Ganjar. She even recommended answering specific questions like "Is Ganjar a clean leader?" This tells me Ganjar's team knows he lacks recognition, even more so overseas since we're talking about the English version of Quora here. Do you know the extent of these kinds of compensated writing operations by the candidates?