Between Performance and Political Contestation

KOMPAS/PRADIPTA PANDU

Presiden Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto.

The general election on April 17, 2019, will be a moment of truth for President Joko Widodo. On that day, he will see whether his administration gets another five years. As recent trends show, performance is only one of many components in the contestation of political power.

In his first four years in office, public satisfaction with Jokowi’s administration has remained at a safe level. Between his presidency’s 18-month anniversary and today, Jokowi has always enjoyed a public satisfaction rating of between 63 percent and 72 percent.

In the past four years, Jokowi has made several achievements, which can be seen as his administration’s milestones. Infrastructure development, including roads, bridges, seaports, airports and markets in regions far away from the capital city has surely boosted his public presence.

It has helped Jokowi leave an indelible image among the working class. Farmers, fishermen, small-time businesspeople and low-wage workers are among those who have been most impacted by his presidency.

Consequently, they will give the strongest support to Jokowi’s reelection bid in 2019. They will serve as strongholds in countering the declining support for him in the middle and upper classes. These two groups, despite consisting of mostly of Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin supporters, are generally more unstable and reactive toward various issues.

If the performance of Jokowi’s administration can serve as a strong foundation for his reelection among his support base in the lower class, more is needed for the middle and upper classes. It can be said that these two groups are continuously seeking new things and identities. They are also much more interested in “new toys”. Jokowi’s moves in international fora, such as the Asian Games and the International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) Annual Meetings in Bali, have been effective in attracting the attention of these two groups. However, his political opponents’ popular #2019GantiPresiden (#2019ChangePresident) hashtag serves as a strong identity in grabbing these groups’ attention.

Such a condition has led to the middle and upper classes seeing the general election as a competition of not only performance but also in creating strong identifying labels. Expertise in creating new identities will determine the outcome of the 2019 general election, not only for the presidential and VP candidates but also for political parties.

New election system

The simultaneous legislative and presidential elections in 2019 has led to the fates of political parties being dependent on the presidential candidate they support. Parties with members running in the presidential election will surely enjoy huge benefits. This is reflected in the latest survey conducted by Kompas R&D. In 2019, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Gerindra Party will reap the most benefit out of simultaneously held elections.

On the other hand, other political parties may see their votes stagnating or even dwindling as the public focuses on the presidential election. These parties have limited latitude in the space of public attention. With an electoral threshold of 4 percent (an increase from the previous 3.5 percent), a number of political parties may lose all of their legislative seats and new political parties may find it difficult to reach the threshold. Furthermore, under the Sainte Lague method of allocating legislative seats that the 2019 election will use, the luck factor will be less involved in winning seats.

The declarations of presidential and VP candidates, along with political parties and legislative candidates, in the 2019 election will be influential in assessing the government’s achievement and the electability of presidential candidates and political parties. However, new chances and possibilities may still emerge in the coming six months of the campaign period.

For the next three days, Kompas will publish research results on the public assessment of the government’s performance, the mapping of political parties’ strength and the electability of presidential candidates. (BAMBANG SETIAWAN/LITBANG KOMPAS)