Governor-elect Anies Baswedan (left) meets with Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama at Ahok\'s office on Thursday (20/4). The meeting discussed, among other things, changes to Jakarta’s regional budget.
The furor surrounding this year’s Jakarta election reached its peak on April 19, 2017. Now, the result is known to everyone. Anies Rasyid Baswedan and Sandiaga Salahudin Uno have defeated Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Syaiful Hidayat in the second round.
The Anies-Sandi pair successfully reversed many election-related phenomenon, including those in the 2012 local election, such as that the pair who won the first round also won the second round. Was Anies-Sandi’s victory truly a surprise? No. That was my answer at a televised discussion ahead of the start of the voting day’s quick count at 1 p.m. It would have been a surprise if Basuki-Djarot won, as 90 percent of the surveys in the final days ahead of the runoff election showed that Anies and Sandi were leading. It was just the margin that was different between survey results. Some showed a margin of only one percent while others showed 10 percent. Therefore, this has been a predictable election result.
From surveys, we can also see the variables that influence voters’ choices. What are these? In every local election, there are always three big variables that influence voters’ choice. First, rational variables such as candidates’ aptitude and incumbents’ performance. Second, personality variables such candidates’ likability – or lack thereof – in the eyes of voters. Third, sociological/primordial variables such as similarity of ethnicities and religions between candidates and voters.
In terms of rational variables, Basuki and Djarot were actually seen as having the advantage over Anies and Sandi. In the televised debate held as part of the Mata Najwa program, the public saw Basuki as having performed better than Anies. This was consistent with the results of surveys on the first round’s debates. In terms of public satisfaction, Basuki’s score was consistently above 70 percent. Commonly, incumbent candidates with such a high public satisfaction score easily secure re-election.
Basuki’s weakness is not about his performance. Rather, it was on the second and third variables. In terms of personality or candidate’s likability, Basuki had the lowest scores among election candidates, even lower than those of Djarot and Sandi. Basuki’s likability score was 60 percent, while Djarot’s and Sandi’s hovered around 70 percent and Anies’ was at 80 percent.
Variables of ethnicity and especially religion awere also Basuki’s weakness. A majority of Christian voters voted for Basuki-Djarot while a majority of Muslim voters picked Anies-Sandi. This was important and interesting as there had been a shift of Muslim voters’ support for the Basuki-Djarot pair. Before the Al-Maidah 51 incident on the Thousand Islands regency, a majority of Muslim voters had picked Basuki-Djarot. However, after the incident, a majority of Muslim voters switched their support for Anies-Sandi.
On one hand, we can say: this is entirely Basuki’s fault. “Mulutmu, harimaumu,” an old Indonesian saying goes. “Watch your mouth”. Basuki had gone to the Thousand Islands to talk about a fisheries program. Why should he: (1) talk about the election, (2) and even if he wanted to talk about the election, why should he talk about who to choose or not to choose, (3) and even if he wanted to talk about political support, why should he quote another religion’s holy book?
On the other hand, we cannot deny the efforts to frame and mass-mobilize against Basuki based on religious and racial issues. The Al-Maidah incident gave these efforts a huge opportunity to attack Basuki. The framing and mass mobilization were later linked to Basuki’s religious and racial backgrounds. What happened next was a big bang of opinion and mass mobilization as seen in the 411 and 212 incidents.
“A creeping coup”
Some said that the surge of opinion and mass mobilization was inseparable from the merging of various interests of groups and political figures who have a stake in the 2017 Jakarta election. Many are playing a chess game of state power, both for immediate and long-term results. Such an opinion should not be set aside easily. This was why issues of “a creeping coup” and the like were widespread during the election. Not all political elites were willing to be patient and wait for the momentum of the next elections to ensure their road to power. Regardless of different context and reasons, incidents of state power changes in 2001 and 1965 had become references and historical precedents that changes of power midway is a “possibility” in the dynamics of state power.
However, outside of the factor of elite maneuvering, a rearrangement is felt necessary in our society. This is because identity politics does not exist in a vacuum. There are limits to efforts of framing and mass-mobilization. Without having to debate each other on the exact number of participants in the 411 and 212 incidents, we can surely agree that these were among the moments of massive mass mobilizations in the history of Indonesia. Surely there was a collective emotion that drove such a massive number of people to take to the streets together.
Other indicators on these collective emotion was the massive spread of issues related to ethnicity, religion, race and intergroup relations (SARA) on one hand and vicious clashes between individuals and groups as a result of the spread of divisive issues. The harshest of these clashes were not seen on conventional media such as televisions and newspapers as the figures involved are political elites highly adept at manipulating words and having gone through strong editorial process from mass media’s editorial boards. The harshest clashes instead occurred in personal spaces such as Whatsapp groups, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Exchanges of vitriol ending in feelings of being insulted and enmity were common in the six-month election period.
SARA issues
Without meaning to cause pessimism, issues of SARA and political identity are expected to return to the forefront in future political contestations, including the 2018 regional elections and the 2019 presidential elections. What is the basis of this thought? First, the phenomenon of SARA issues and political identity in the Jakarta election was actually similar to those in the 2014 election.
Themes such as race, religion, the people in control of the largest economic assets in Indonesia and these people’s political support on certain candidates, reemerged in the 2017 election. Remember the case of the Obor Rakyat tabloid? The 2017 Jakarta election was the 2014 election without Obor Rakyat. If political identity was heavily involved in the 2014 presidential election and the 2017 Jakarta election, we can safely assume that it will come into play in the 2018 simultaneous regional elections and the 2019 presidential election.
Second, identity politics and framing of issues would not have been possible if the macro conditions of the Indonesian people were not conducive for the spread of such issues and framings. Identity politics and framing of issues do not exist in a vacuum. They have strong and deep roots in the political reality of (some of) the people. Surely there are certain groups of people who were dissatisfied, feeling threatened or at least disliked certain political and economic realities that drove them to use identity politics and SARA issues to channel their political and social frustration.
Why do they dislike these certain political realities? Studies of conflicts and social psychology recognize the concept of relative deprivation, commonly used to explain the emergence of movements in socio-political conflicts. Relative deprivations are subjective conditions in which certain people or groups are feeling dissatisfied about their conditions compared to conditions of other groups. Such dissatisfactions are commonly linked to matters of economy, political rights, recognitions or other things deemed important and precious.
Who are these people? An effort to identify them can be done by looking at the groups and individuals emerging on the surface and the rhetoric they use. Surely the government has tools and instruments to do this identification. Of no less importance is to identity the fundamental issues resulting in the emergence of strong SARA and identity politics issues in our politics recently.
Such issues were closely linked to economic gap as reflected in our Gini coefficient. It is also reflected in the gap of control of assets between social groups in the ranking of Indonesia’s wealthiest people as released by Forbes business magazine and Oxfam international organization. Experiences from the Jakarta election showed that the central government must implement a series of policies that can resolve or at least reduce these economic gaps to avoid such issues from reemerging in future elections. Perhaps, the policies the current administration should prioritize are not about growth but about economic equality.
