Anticipating the 2019 elections

Anticipation is a human behavior and action to prepare responses based on evidence or observations to situations that have yet to occur. This behavior-action is very natural, because human beings live in the present as well as for their future. Nevertheless, there are two serious problems.

First, even though humans cognitively anticipate what they might face, they often do not take the required action. When the situation or event they anticipated has actually come to pass, the response is kedodoran (loose, too broad).

Second, even though they prepare the most reasonable anticipatory measure, in the end, it has not considered all variables necessary to the calculation. The result is the same: kedodoran.

The difference is that unprepared anticipation will be followed by unpreparedness in recovering from kedodoran. The person loses the chance or time to think creatively about the situation at hand and does not know how to mobilize his resources. Those who possess readiness have equipped themselves with the energy required to deal with unexpected happenings, so they are flexible in their thinking and know what resources need to be mobilized.

2019 presidential election

What can we observe in preparation for the major democratic celebration of the 2019 presidential election? First, no open discourse has been held on future programs and development plans. What we have seen is information on various development efforts and achievements associated with the incumbent without concentrated efforts to give him credit, and minor reactions from the opposition. It must also be observed that, when the rival camp raises an issue, the party backing the incumbent will claim defensively that the question is illegitimate, nonsensical, uninformed, etc.

In the several debates that have been published in the mass media, the phenomenon is that the reactive defenders of the incumbent are not ready to face the "oddities" and illogical thinking of the rival camp. As a result, we are watching one side trying to justify what they are doing and the other side smiling a lot amid their "foolish" games.

Those representing the incumbent are failing to anticipate the opposition’s deconstruction strategy, utilizing false reality to criticize the most basic of the incumbent’s achievements in speaking with their uneducated constituents, even resorting to caricature to distort the incumbent\'s character. In the end, creative and more productive methods are not used. Concerns over their use of "dirty" methods return monotonous responses and annoyance.

Another issue we have observed in the discourse leading up to the 2019 election is the effort to influence voter opinions through hoaxes and fake news, or publicly trusted figures expressing (or tweeting) their emotions. This kind of experimentation is very dangerous, because if one side succeeds in rooting "the real reality" in the constituency’s mindset through emotional appeals or their alternative version of reality, they can be mobilized easily on the moral or religious arguments that have been used to construct that reality.

Deconstructing the government’s programs or achievements begins with macro issues like government debt, the current account deficit, the Gini ratio and poverty, as well as foreign workers and local contract workers – topics that the grassroots do not fully understand, because that is not the goal. The aim is to provoke a defensive response that is forced to deliver simple and detailed explanations, and then to raise micro issues that voters can easily understand: the price of goods, injustice, tyranny, foreign accomplices, the PKI (the defunct Indonesian Communist Party).

This kind of experimentation, which stirs up the voters’ emotions and provokes the grassroots through lectures or “explosive” economic or racial events, are difficult to overcome and could become a source of future divisiveness, because emotions and "beliefs" cannot be dealt with through moral-ethical education, data or even sophisticated empirical evidence.

The issue that has emerged in the last few weeks is even more dangerous: efforts to create discourse to delegitimize the electoral system to raise grassroots resistance. If the constituency can be convinced that the actual system for the election is invalid due to prior engineering, this could lead to considerable division and collision in society. It will lead to economic and political destabilization and rock the national unity that has been painstakingly established, as is happening today in the Congo and Madagascar. It appears that this strategy of delegitimization will be applied more frequently if no anticipatory action is taken.

Anticipatory actions

The first step is to carefully and cleverly present a programmatic dialogue or discourse. Find creative and educational ways to debate, and all should avoid a defensive stance. Some of these old wisdoms may be useful in developing the right course of action.

Use gentleness to fight aggressiveness. Seek compassion in responding to negative attacks. Allow water to splash back into the faces of those who play with it. Ignorance cannot be tackled with intelligence, but with wisdom. Confronting a fool by holding up a mirror or by throwing their own words back at them may be more effective than arguing against their lack of rational. Reject problems that are not ours – it’s their problem.

All of this will certainly require a solid strategy in urging movements and hard work at the grassroots to engage constituents – especially the youth – in dialogue, like on immunization to prevent infectious diseases.

Next, systemic efforts are needed in fields like law and security to investigate, review and take action against any societal elements that could potentially harm the legitimate government and bureaucratic order. Political process can engender a change in regime for a certain period, but the country and nation must stand for as long as possible. The state apparatus is obliged to maintain the integrity of the governmental system that has been built with the blood and tears of our predecessors. Don’t allow the order of life in the nation and state be destroyed simply because of a power struggle.

Systemically, we must also be able to anticipate matters that could cause chaos in the elections. Data and workflow are critical components of the electoral process that are susceptible to interference, which could prove fatal without a countermeasure. Electoral data and information should be managed carefully and prudently. Extra security under an effective system is necessary at ballot stations.

The primary requirement for the 2019 election is preventing ignorance. Each citizen is obliged to participate in the transfer of power that is democratic, safe and peaceful. Let us help the contesting sides to emerge as our leaders though participation that is educative, inclusive and civilized. (Irwanto, Professor of psychology, Atma Jaya Catholic University Jakarta)