The 2018 and 2019 Indonesian Elections

Identity Politics and Regional Perspectives

Leonard C. Sebastian, Alexander R. Arifianto, Leonard Sebastian, Alexander Arifianto

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367566258
• eBook ISBN: 9781000206302
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Governo americano

The 2018/2019 Indonesian elections were among the most divisive elections in Indonesian history, where identity politics and ethno-religious sentiments were prevalent not just during the 2019 presidential election, but also during the 2018 regional executive elections as well. Contributors to this edited volume analysed the dynamics between identity politics, national and local politics and produce findings and insights that will inform prospective readers regarding the future of identity politics and how it may affect Indonesian politics for the intermediate future.

This book is an up-to-date study addressing contemporary Indonesian politics that should be read by Indonesian Studies and more broadly Southeast Asian Studies specialists. It is also a useful reference for those studying Electoral Politics, Religion and Politics, and Comparative Politics.

1 Introduction

The 2018 and 2019 Indonesian elections – identity politics and regional perspectives

Leonard C. Sebastian and Alexander R. Arifianto

Introduction

The recently concluded 2019 Indonesian general election had been one of the most divisive elections in Indonesian history. The dramatic increase in identity-based politics to mobilise voters and its deliberate employment by politicians to jostle for political advantage occurred on a scale that has not been seen since the era of ‘stream’ (aliran) politics that divided Indonesia during the 1950s.

The study compiled in this edited volume finds that during the 2019 presidential election, identity politics was widely used during the campaign season by both the supporters of incumbent president Joko Widodo (commonly known as Jokowi) and his opponent Prabowo Subianto. Jokowi was supported by a coalition of secular–nationalist and moderate Islam parties – specifically the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), the party affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). The alliance between PDI-P and NU, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, represented Indonesia’s pluralist coalition. Meanwhile, Prabowo Subianto was backed primarily by conservative Islamist groups – many whom had participated in the 2016 and 2017 Defending Islam rallies (Aksi Bela Islam) in Jakarta against former governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (commonly known as ‘Ahok’). The rallies were the precursor of identity-based politics that took place both during the 2018 simultaneous regional elections (pilkada) – which elected local executives of 17 provinces and 154 districts and cities throughout Indonesia – but especially during the 2019 general election itself.

The widespread usages of identity politics during the 2018 simultaneous regional executive elections and the 2019 Indonesian general election is a troubling sign of Indonesian politics for the years to come – as Islamism has become increasingly prominent in Indonesian politics. Political Islam plays on the growing desire among many pious Muslims to have Islamic values be reflected in Indonesia’s political and legal institutions – both at the national and local levels. This can be seen in the influence of senior religious clerics such as Ma’ruf Amin – who became president Jokowi’s vice-presidential nominee. Similarly, a large number of national and regional politicians sought endorsements from Islamist clerics ranging from Rizieq Shihab – leader of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and chief organiser of the Defending Islam Movement, Tengku Zulkarnain, the controversial Salafi preacher who is also an official of the Council of Indonesian Ulema (MUI), and popular online preachers with millions of online followers such as Abdul Somad, Abdullah Gymnastiar (Aa Gym), and Hanan Attaki. They underscore that visible demonstrations of religious piety have become extremely important as a large number of the Indonesian population has become more religious and are using their religiosity to inform their viewpoints, especially in political matters.

Local history often plays a role in determining the saliency of identity politics in different Indonesian regions. Buehler (2016) found in his research that provinces that participated in the 1950s/1960s Darul Islam (DI) rebellion – seeking the establishment of an Indonesian state based upon Islamic principles – tend to adopt local Islamic regulations (perda shari’a) than provinces with no prior experience with the DI. Due to this historical legacy, religiously inspired identity politics are more salient in former DI provinces like West Java, West Sumatra, and South Sulawesi. These provinces have strong theologically conservative Islamic groups dominating regional politics, which affected the political discourses within these regions, motivating candidates and activists alike to resort to identity-based ‘black campaigns’ against their opponents. The importance of conservative Islamist groups in regional politics also meant that gubernatorial candidates for West Java and South Sulawesi needed to play the role of a pious Muslim and court support from clerics who ran Islamic groups and boarding schools during the course of the electoral campaign.

In addition, provinces with a long history of intra-ethnic rivalry and competition also saw a high incidence of identity politics. This can be seen in West Kalimantan – where the long-standing rivalries between Malays, Dayaks, and Chinese ethnic groups morphed into inter-religious rivalries between the Muslim Malay, the Christian Dayak, and Chinese ethnic groups. The rivalries between the different groups was evident in the 2018 gubernatorial election, featuring candidates that only represented their respective ethno-religious groups – respectively Malay–Muslim Sutarmidji and Dayak Christian Karolin Margaret Natasa. Nonetheless, Islamisation does not necessarily translate directly into increased usages of identity politics within a given province or region. Mitigating factors – such as the strong presence of moderate Islamic organisations like NU and Muhammadiyah, will shape how Islam and identity politics are being expressed within a given region.

Identity politics plays a smaller role in provinces where there was no history of past Islamist rebellion and where theologically moderate Islamic groups like NU dominates local politics. Meanwhile, this was reflected in elections in East and Central Java provinces. In fact, elections in these provinces were dominated by issues relating to candidate personality and patron–client relationships between candidates and their party supporters, rather than identity-based politics. Nevertheless, some form of identity politics can still be seen in the gubernatorial campaign in both provinces – as seen in the last-minute maneuvering by Gerindra and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) parties against Saifullah Yusuf and Puti Guntur Soekarno from the PKB–PDI-P coalition that resulted in their electoral defeat against their challenger Khofifah Indar Parawansa – Emil Dardak. A similar manoeuvre can also be seen in Central Java in the re-election candidacy of incumbent governor Ganjar Pranowo from PDI-P and his opponent Sudirman Said backed by Gerindra Party.

The role of identity politics differs in its scale and intensity across Indonesia’s many electoral battlegrounds. While it is significant for the presidential election and many gubernatorial election races, its role is significantly attenuated in regional races for regents (bupati) and mayoral elections, as well as Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) and regional legislative (DPRD) elections. Instead of identity politics, these races tend to be mired by historical grievances between different ethno-religious groups. Candidate ties to local networks often based on patron–client relations with notable local politicians and power brokers instead of loyalties to political parties. Indeed, the scholarship on Indonesian regional politics over the past decade has shown that political parties at the regional level continue to weaken and become divided along numerous factions formed based on their leader’s patron–client ties. Candidates for local executives and legislatures are often selected based on political patronage and connections rather than based on achievements or party loyalty (e.g. Aspinall & Sukmajati 2016, Aspinall & Berescott 2019, Muhtadi 2019).

The question underlies this edited volume – are the 2018 regional elections and 2019 general elections in Indonesia a watershed moment in Indonesian politics characterised by divisive identity politics or a continuation of electoral politics characterised by political pragmatism and patron–client relationship? Or are they somewhere in between? In this edited volume, we would like to probe the saliency of identity politics during the 2018 regional executive and 2019 national and regional legislative elections. We define ‘identity politics’ as: any political act that utilises rhetoric, images, metaphors, and symbols that are meant to portray members of ethnic and/or religious groups (both as individuals or as a collective) in a negative or derogatory manner. In this edited volume, we want to understand the factors behind the prevalence of identity politics in critical battleground regions throughout Indonesia during the 2018/2019 Indonesian elections. We also want to find how do they relate to local historical legacies, socio-political, and demographic variables within these regions that either promotes the high usages of identity politics or alternatively – the lack of them – during the 2018/2019 elections in these regions.

The 2019 Indonesian general election was also the largest single-day election in the world – with more than 20,000 elected positions contested among 245,000 candidates, and 7 million poll workers administering the election, it was also one of the most complex election systems ever administered in the world. Independent monitoring Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) like Perludem have expressed concerns regarding the complexities and possible irregularities that might arises under the current system. Our edited volume argues that the current design of the Indonesian electoral system is also playing a significant role in increasing party fragmentation and personalisation of election campaigns during the 2018/2019 Indonesian elections.

Indonesian electoral system under challenge

The use of identity politics during the 2018 regional election and the 2019 general election has made the Indonesian electoral system – which is already marred with problems such as the increasing personalisation of candidates and widespread money politics – to become even more fragile. Election observers believed that the elections were plagued by several issues, including: 1) increased prevalence of identity politics and polarisation during both the gubernatorial and presidential election campaigns; 2) the massive complexity of the election administration which had to manage five different elections simultaneously; and 3) the use of an open proportional representation (PR) system, which contributed to the widespread use of money politics by candidates in national and local legislative races. In addition, there are other issues related to the conduct of the election, including: the lack of substantial voter education at the grassroots level and the increased attacks against election management institutions such as the Indonesian Election Commission (KPU) and the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) that threatens to erode their reputation as fair and impartial Indonesian election managers in future elections to come.

The main legal framework for the 2019 election was Law No 7/2017 on General Elections, which was a comprehensive law that combines three previously separate election laws covering the legislative elections, presidential election, and election management. The law retains the electoral threshold provisions for both the presidential and legislative elections as prescribed by previous laws. The presidential threshold stipulates that a presidential candidate shall be nominated by a party that manages to reach 25 per cent of popular votes casted in the presidential election or control 20 per cent of the House of Representatives (DPR) seats. As Indonesia’s party system is fraught with consistent fragmentation – none of the parties that sat in the DPR elected in 2014 was able to meet the bar set by this threshold – necessitating the need to develop coalitions between multiple parties so they may be able to nominate a presidential candidate. This created incentives for all parties to form ‘grand coalitions’ based on their need for political spoils and patronage (i.e. the ‘cartel party’ and ‘promiscuous power-sharing’ arrangement stated by Slater (2004) and Slater and Simmons (2012)). Some of the parties aligning with president Jokowi – for instance Partai Golongan Karya (Party of Functional Groups, Golkar) and the United Development Party (PPP) – were driven by these motives when they agreed to join his party coalition, after they had backed Prabowo during the 2014 presidential contest (Mietzner 2016).

However, the post-212 political climate also created incentives for several parties to band together on an identity-based platform, to back Prabowo Subianto’s presidential candidacy. It was especially so among the ranks of Prabowo Subianto’s supporters – who came from the ranks of conservative Islamist parties such as Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) affiliated with the Tarbiyah movement influenced by Ikhwanul Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) theology and the National Mandate Party (PAN), which is aligned with Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organisation – where many of its activists are committed to the idea of promoting a more orthodox interpretation of Islam. PKS has benefitted the most from its close alliance with Prabowo and became the second-largest Islamic party in Indonesia (based on its total DPR vote share) after touting the retired general as ‘the most Islamic presidential candidate’.¹ The high presidential threshold – which made it difficult for parties to nominate presidential candidates of their own – was blamed by a number of electoral reform experts as factors contributing to the identity-based polarisation between Jokowi and Prabowo camps during the campaign season.²

Law No 7/2017 calls for a national election for five different national and regional offices to be held simultaneously in 2019. Namely they were held for the following offices: the presidency, House of Representatives (DPR), Regional Representatives Council (DPD), Provincial Legislative Council (DPRD I), and District or City Legislative Council (DPRD II). Featuring 245,000 candidates that contested approximately 20,000 public offices, the election took place in 800,000 polling stations and was supervised by nearly 7 million poll workers (Bland 2019). Organising what some observers have called the biggest single-day elections in the world was certainly a major challenge for the poll workers – who had to administer, supervise, and hand-count the ballots for five different elections in each polling booth – all in a single day.

The high number of poll workers who died within weeks after the election was held – estimated to be 424 people (Grayman 2019) testified not just to the exhaustion of poll workers who had to perform the above tasks at the polling booth, and often also had to deal with threats and intimidation campaigns staged by certain candidates and/or their party sponsors, which openly questioned the electoral integrity of the election process. The number of threats and intimidation at the polling booth has increased significantly compared to previous elections, signifying a growing scepticism among some candidates and parties regarding the fairness of the election process. While some of it can be attributed to the increased usages of identity politics during the 2019 election, it can also be attributed to the growing dissatisfaction towards Indonesian democratic system and institutions, something that shall be elaborated later in this section.

Despite the large number of poll workers deployed to administer the election, little effort was expanded by KPU, the government, and by candidates themselves to educate prospective voters on the use of five different ballot papers, each a different colour, being utilised simultaneously on election day and the accompanying election procedures. Voters were not informed regarding the large ballot papers they needed to fill for DPR and DPRD elections – due to the large number of candidates running for these elections within a single constituency. And most did not know the names of the majority of candidates that appeared on the ballot papers. The lack of adequate voter education resulted in the large number of spoiled ballots in the legislative elections. The number of spoiled ballots were estimated to be 17 million (approximately 11.1 per cent of all votes casted) for the DPR election and 19 million for the DPD election.³ Arguably, the lack of adequate information regarding election procedures and candidates, also resulted in the large incidents of money politics in the national and legislative elections – as shall be elaborated below.

The 2019 Indonesian election was also held under an open and decentralised manner where voters were able to vote for individual candidates but not necessarily their political parties, by punching at the name of the candidates at the polling booth. This takes place under the open-list proportional representation (PR) system Indonesia has been using since the 2009 election. First established after a successful Constitutional Court challenge by minor political parties, the open PR system was initially hailed as an innovation that would have resulted in a greater choice for Indonesian voters and a reduced role for political parties, as individual candidates – not parties – were supposed to be the focus of the election and party control over candidates are supposed to be minimised.

However, by 2019 the open-list PR system has promoted further party fragmentation and heavy personalisation of electoral campaigns both at the national and local levels, as candidate’s personal characters, attributes, and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: the 2018 and 2019 Indonesian elections – identity politics and regional perspectives
• 2 Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election: does policy still matter?
• 3 The 2018 simultaneous regional elections and 2019 simultaneous national elections in West Java province
• 4 The 2018 simultaneous regional elections and 2019 simultaneous national elections in East Java province
• 5 Aliran politics, political jihad, and disappointment: notes for Muslim Javanese in the pre- and post-2019 general election in Central Java
• 6 The 2018 simultaneous regional elections and 2019 simultaneous national elections in North Sumatra: different facades of identity politics
• 7 West Sumatra in the 2019 general election: the past in shaping the region’s identity
• 8 The 2018 and 2019 elections in South Sulawesi: Jusuf Kalla’s decline and the return of Islamists
• 9 The 2018/2019 simultaneous elections in West Kalimantan province and its aftermath: historical legacies, identity politics, and the politics of partition
• 10 Electoral politics in Sumba: the persistence of tradition
• 11 Conclusion: what have we learned?
• Index