The issues that have emerged in the presidential debates must be disseminated through the campaigns. In addition to providing political education, this will also remind the candidates of their promises.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS —The public must be exposed to the details of the 2019 presidential debates through other campaign methods, such as mass gatherings/public campaigns and limited face-to-face meetings. Aside from political education, especially in providing information to voters before they exercise their suffrage on April 17, 2019, such a move will also help remind elected candidates of the promises they made during the debates or their campaign.
By Sunday (March 31, 2019), four rounds of the presidential debates have taken place. The fifth and final debate will be held on April 13, the last day of the presidential campaign.
The fifth debate, which will see the participation of both presidential and vice presidential candidates, will focus on economics and social welfare, finance and investment, and trade and industry.
The candidates made commitments to several programs in the four previous debates, which covered 19 topics. The presidential candidates touched on issues concerning the debates’ themes and which the public deem to be the most critical issues, according to four surveys Kompas R&D conducted ahead of the debates.
In the first round, the candidates offered solutions related to corruption eradication programs and other topics, such as strengthening law enforcement and improving transparency. Concerning food issues in the second round, the candidates promised affordable and stable food prices, reducing imports and increasing incomes for farmers and fishermen.
On education in the third debate, the candidates offered to boost research and development, more scholarships, replacing the national exam with a new, talent- and interest-based system, and programs to improve connections between school and business, including a job-matching program.
Regarding national ideology in the fourth round, the candidates underlined their commitment to maintain Pancasila as the state ideology. Both candidate pairs also offered programs, including early education on Pancasila values through daily examples.
In line
Based on Kompas observation, some of the narratives the two candidate pairs delivered in the past week during their public campaigns have maintained the line they presented during the debates. However, their presentations were mere briefs without elaboration.
The Joko Widodo-Ma\'ruf Amin pair, for example, made many promises in their campaigns on infrastructure development and the three social welfare programs, dubbed “Jokowi’s magic cards”. In addition, they also asked the public to combat hoaxes, exercise their voting right and maintain unity and diversity.
The Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno camp also made a public call to maintain unity and tolerance during its campaigns in a number of regions. The pair frequently reiterated their pledge to eradicate poverty and improve public welfare, for example by lowering electricity rates and the prices of basic necessities in the first 100 days of their government, creating more jobs and eradicating corruption.
Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Noory Okthariza said in Jakarta that the presidential candidate pairs needed to explain the ideas they presented during the four public debates. The rival teams also needed to disseminate details on their programs through door-to-door campaigns.
However, political communication professor Karim Suryadi of the Indonesia Education University in Bandung said that the public campaigns tended to be emotional, instead of providing details on the candidates’ road maps.
Political researcher Firman Noor of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said the candidates’ consistency in the narratives they presented during the debates or their campaigns was important for all levels of society to receive complete and consistent information. This was particularly so, considering that not all citizens watched the debates or read the candidates’ vision-mission documents. Not all residents also attended the public campaigns in their region.
“Ideally, the narratives presented in various forums must therefore be unified and come from the same platform, with some adjustments to accommodate the conditions and context of the residents in the campaign area,” said Firman.
However, Jokowi-Ma’ruf campaign director Beni Ramdani said the public gatherings/campaigns and the presidential debates were of a different character to other forums that were specifically designed to present the candidates’ vision, mission and programs. He said the public campaigns in several regions were an opportunity to celebrate and glorify the candidates.
“This means that the public campaigns are not designed to more broadly explore the vision and mission as well as the promises [the candidates] presented during the debates,” he said.
Separately, Prabowo-Sandiaga spokesperson Andre Rosiade said that cadres and volunteers from the Gerindra Party were publicly campaigning in the regions on the pair’s work programs.
He said that the campaign involved face-to-face meetings with the local people in public places like markets, as well as door-to-door visits. (SAN/REK/AGE)