Hello friends!
Tomorrow is one year until Indonesia’s enormous elections. In a year, voters across Indonesia will be presented with a handful of ballots to elect everyone from president to local representatives. It’s an amazing undertaking and one of the largest elections in terms of votes cast in the world.
For this project, a spin-off of my newsletter Dari Mulut ke Mulut so as not to spam readers not-quite-so-interested in Indonesia with the ins and outs, I’ll be focusing primarily on the presidential and vice-presidential races as well as a few key gubernatorial races — Jakarta, Bali and West Java, as well as a few others.
I missed the excitement of 2014 — a few months too late on my job offer! — and when 2019 rolled around the battle lines were so clearly drawn that veterans of covering 2014, both Indonesian and foreigners, lamented how comparatively ‘boring’ it was. Now, with incumbent President Joko Widodo having served his limit of two terms, the field is wide open. Which means a steep learning curve for me.
Think of this newsletter more as a conversation, less as a comprehensive analysis and certainly not picking a side. I don’t know everything. In fact, most visits to Jakarta and a chat with an ojol here or a climate activist friend there and I realise I don’t know much of anything. This project is a very public way to satiate my curiosity of how such an enormous country navigates elections geographically, socially and politically. Which is all to say, please be nice to me! I have too many friends with PhDs and it has given me a complex!
To begin with, expect this newsletter fortnightly and less about the horse-trading and more about the overarching elements — what’s the go with money politics? How does NU wield its power? How do local communities organise their polling sites? Will we need to talk about the Third Term?
I’m also on the lookout for contributors. I’m especially keen to hear from young Indonesians who have come of voting age in recent years and what influences voting and expectations. Please get in touch to discuss a piece. Always paid! I’ll be dipping in and out of Indonesia over the next year, so am very interested in setting up ongoing contributions.
Today is a bit of a scene-setter. We’re a whole year out so there’s much to be decided, including how, exactly, the election itself works. Here are (some of) the key players that have emerged so far.
See you in a fortnight!
Erin Cook
In a very unscientific poll of baristas and bar staff of Jakarta last month, Anies Baswedan is the guy to beat. In Jakarta. Parts of Jakarta, I guess. Raise the same question with my middle-class Chinese-Indonesian friends and it is eye-rolls all around. The racially divisive gubernatorial race for Jakarta in 2017 hasn’t been forgiven and certainly hasn’t been forgotten. How that historical period is viewed outside of Jakarta is something I’m very keen to explore throughout the next year.
This piece from Resty Woro Yuniar for SCMP lays out Anies’ history and his attempts to reform his image as that of a pluralist in the final days of his governorship — which he gave up last year to run for president. “There will be speculation about whether he will go easier on [Islam fundamentalist] groups like [banned] Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia or Islamic Defenders Front. So it will be interesting to see what he signals to these groups during the election,” analyst Eve Warburton flagged with Resty.
How he balances this is one of the intriguing elements of the race so far, I think.
In an even less scientific poll (of two, one not even a citizen) of Central Java, nothing but Ganjar Pranowo. Ganjar, the grey-haired ganteng Governor of Central Java, has not formally put his hand up (more on this below) but has done very well in the polls.
At this stage, expect it to come down to a run-off between the two, pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting predicted earlier this month. “Seeing the current trend, Anies would likely face Ganjar in the second round. This would be much like our first presidential election in 2004, where there were more than two candidates and two rounds,” founder Saiful Mujani said in a statement.
This newsletter is primarily followed by other foreigners, so allow me to get on my soapbox for a moment. I think we, collectively, need to be more exact when discussing the candidacy of Prabowo Subianto. The constant candidate barely raised a ‘yeah, duh’ when he announced his run for Gerindra late last year. That announcement set off the usual flurry in the international press of his military background and unresolved allegations of human rights abuses, which is always worthy of discussing. I worry, though, that that is where the conversation ends for much of the international press.
In 2014, he secured 62,576,444 votes. In 2019, he hit 68,650,239. Engagement and interrogation of why so many vote for him is needed alongside the typical coverage or else it is a disservice to readers abroad trying to truly understand Indonesia. I do think lessons learnt in the Philippines, Brazil and, of course, the US will have an impact here. I’m certainly no Prabowo apologist, but I do not want to read any sort of analysis that boils down to ‘60 million+ Indonesians must be bad people.’
The vying for vice presidential candidates is in full swing. I’m extremely curious to see what happens with West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil, whose name is appearing next to just about everyone. West Java is an enormous province and his popularity there carries some big sway. He is a very interesting fella, I think. A very skilled architect and a very loose unit on Instagram! What a combo. He’s also overseen a sharp far-right turn in his home province that would surely not play well with voters outside alarmed at the influence of some of these elements.
And then there’s Megawati Sukarnoputri. Not a candidate, but a king (or queen!) maker. Johannes Nugroho is long one of my favourite writers in Indonesia and if this is an opening gambit for his Pilpres coverage, ooh I’m sticking close for the year.
“Poor Jokowi could never have got there without PDI-P!” Megawati said from the stage of the party’s 50th-anniversary celebrations last month. This is undoubtedly true, as Johannes notes in this excellent review of her loooong speech.
I didn’t watch the speech — I did something far more annoying. I assumed, like many, that the PDI-P candidate would be announced so, given the time difference between Jakarta and Canberra, I spent an evening at the pub with old friends obsessively checking Twitter and Detik to see who would be anointed. No one was. Instead, Megawati promised to name the pick in June during Pancasila Day celebrations.
Who the pick will be is an intriguing question. Megawati spoke a lot about strong female leadership in the January address, as Johannes reflects on in his piece. Is it ownership of her own storied — and, possibly, stymied — career, or should it be read as a not-so-quiet endorsement of daughter Puan Maharani?
Ganjar, a PDI-P cadre, runs rings around every other candidate in polling but especially Puan who trails behind most. There is, probably, a gender element to this. As Johannes writes, Megawati has struggled for much of her career in some quarters to be seen as a self-possessed woman, sandwiched between the legacy of her father, founding president Sukarno, and rumours her late husband Taufik Kiemas was the brains behind her brief presidency. The perception that Puan’s strings are pulled by her mother — even more so than the rumours that plagued Jokowi’s first term — is impossible to budge.
It’s an interesting dynamic. Megawati and Puan are certainly not the only dynastic arrangement in Indonesian politics! But Puan, at 49, is much older than, say, Jokowi’s sons. She has been politically successful and is well-versed in the wheeling and dealing of both the presidential office and the legislative assembly. She’s been the Speaker of the House since 2019.
Still, the apparent skill of Puan (and I do expect to get some WhatsApp messages once this goes out…) has not translated into national likability. Which puts Megawati in a very odd position. Does she push Puan, who she clearly wants, or does she push Ganjar, who has the best bet of winning and maintaining PDI-P at the top of the political party pecking order?
Last month she told media she had already made her pick but was holding out for the June announcement.
It’s going to be a long year. I can’t wait.
Great newsletter Erin. Dont really hear anything in the main stream media regarding the Indonesian elections in Australia. Which is a shame as they are our biggest direct neighbour in the region.