JULY 4 — The presidential election in 2019 is still fluid, as much will depend on who Widodo’s opponents will be when candidates submit their names in August.
The dust has settled on Indonesia’s third simultaneous regional elections (locally known as Pilkada) that took place on June 27.
This Pilkada involves the election of executive leaders in 17 provinces, 115 regencies and 39 cities by 152 million eligible voters across the nation’s archipelago.
As this is the last major electoral event before the presidential and parliamentary elections in April 2019, political analysts tend to see this round of regional elections as a barometer for the popularity of political parties and potential presidential candidates, most notably President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
The prevailing view so far is that the defeat of gubernatorial candidates backed by the Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle (PDI-P), which President Jokowi belongs to, suggests the waning popularity of the PDI-P and by association, the diminishing electability of President Jokowi in 2019.
According to quick count results, PDI-P-backed candidates won in only four out of 17 provinces.
Moreover, the defeat of PDI-P candidates in populous West Java and East Java, and the outer island provinces of North Sumatra and West Kalimantan, where PDI-P or Widodo had leading vote banks in the 2014 elections, raises questions on whether PDI-P and Widodo will continue to enjoy support in these provinces.
However, while suggestive, extrapolating regional election results to how parties and presidential candidates will perform in national polls does not paint an accurate picture of Indonesian politics.
If the party affiliations of winning candidates is to be seen as an indicator of party popularity, then it would seem that the most popular parties are the National Democratic (NasDem) Party, National Mandate Party (PAN), People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) and Golkar, all of which had more than 50 per cent of their candidates lead in the quick count results.
Yet, besides Golkar, which came in second in the 2014 general elections with 14.75 per cent of the votes, the rest are smaller parties that did not garner more than 8 per cent individually at the national polls.
Thus, while political parties and presidential candidates play important roles in the regional, parliamentary and presidential elections, Indonesian voters are discerning and understand that they are voting for different entities in different elections.
For regional elections, what is important is the appeal of individual candidates, or what has come to be known as the electability of candidates.
Political parties usually play the limited role of nominating candidates (almost always based on the candidates’ existing popularity) and giving them the ticket to the polls, and little more.
The appeal of candidates is related to local issues and affiliations, such as religion, ethnicity, and whether they are considered ”native” to the region, as well as their network resources.
For instance, in West Kalimantan, local identity politics was the main issue, where the predominantly Christian Dayaks and Muslim-majority Malays were on opposing sides.
On the campaign trail, both the leading contender Sutarmidji, who is a Malay Muslim, and the PDI-P-supported Dayak candidate Karolin Margret Natasa drummed up nativist and religious identity issues to pull in votes.
In North Sumatra, PDI-P candidate and former Jakarta governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat lost to the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra)’s Edy Rahmayadi, mostly because he was seen to be foreign to the province.
Reports from the ground suggest that despite Hidayat’s good reputation as a “clean” politician, many local voters did not want to vote in someone without strong local affiliation.
For parliamentary elections, support for political parties is dependent on the appeal of the party leader and candidates fielded, as well as the ability of the party machinery to work the ground and mobilize votes.
The dynamics of the presidential election is more complicated.
Judging from the 2014 election in particular, the success of a presidential campaign depends on a combination of individual candidates’ charisma, party affiliations, logistical and grassroots volunteer mobilisation across a vast archipelago, and the endorsement of allies ranging from regional and religious leaders to popular performance artistes.
In other words, the regional, parliamentary and presidential elections are three different games involving different types of players contesting in different arenas.
While local and national players may seek to influence outcomes in adjoining arenas, they are more often than not mere spectators watching a game played by different rules, and their spheres of influence should not be overstated.
For the parliamentary election in 2019, the more indicative measure may be opinion polls conducted by reputable institutions rather than the results of the recent regional elections.
According to recent surveys, such as the one conducted by Cyrus Network in April, PDI-P is still predicted to be the eventual winner, followed by Golkar and Gerindra which have roughly equal popularity.
The presidential election will be much more fluid, as much will depend on who Widodo’s opponents will be when candidates submit their names in August.
Yet, we should not dismiss the recent regional elections as totally unrelated to the 2019 elections. What is clear is that the battle lines are being drawn.
In some provinces such as West Java and Central Java, the opposition coalition has banded together to support the same candidates.
Although these candidates did not do well in the pre-election polls and eventually lost, their performance was much better than anticipated, largely due to the opposition coalition’s ability to work the ground, particularly in the final days of campaigning.
In military jargon, this can be considered an exercise where the opposition coalition rehearsed its tactics for Islamist grassroots mobilisation in preparation for the battle next year.
While the results of the regional elections are not a barometer for the impending parliamentary and presidential elections, the performance of party machineries on the ground for this round is still an indicator of their potential effectiveness come 2019.
— TODAY
* Hui Yew-Foong and Charlotte Setijadi are respectively Senior Fellow and Visiting Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or organisation and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
