“The challenge in Jakarta is you have to campaign at three levels,” explains Ridwan Kamil, the former governor of West Java and candidate for the governorship of Indonesia’s capital. “In West Java, and other areas in Indonesia, you campaign at two levels to the people and the elite. In Jakarta you have two levels of elite, Jakarta elite and national elite.”
Indonesia’s local elections are due to be held on Wednesday just over a month after the inauguration of President Prabowo Subianto. And no race is being watched more closely than Jakarta’s gubernatorial election. The result will not just decide who will take on the herculean task of managing the megacity. It also stands as an early test of strength for Prabowo and a sign of some the neck-snapping realignments that Indonesian politics may see in the years ahead.
Three candidates are running in the Jakarta election: Ridwan, Pramono Anung, former cabinet secretary and member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), and Dharma Pongrekun, a retired police general. The race is effectively between the first two candidates with polls suggesting Pramono has the edge, despite having started well behind Ridwan. What many expected to be a sleepy affair stage-managed by the new government has turned into a genuine contest.
The run-up to the provincial and local elections was marked by a series of brazen maneuvers by the Prabowo administration, even before it was formally inaugurated, to handpick victors and exclude opposition. “No race anywhere in this country was supposed to be competitive,” said Seth Soderborg, a freelance polling consultant based in Jakarta.
Following Prabowo’s February 14 victory in the presidential election, he moved to expand his proposed governing coalition to include every party bar the PDI-P. Then all parties in the coalition were pushed to nominate the same candidate for local races. Combined with nomination thresholds based on support from parties, this meant the country faced the possibility of hundreds of races for everything from key governorships to regencies in which there would be only one government-approved candidate.
One of the most prominent targets of these tactics was the former governor of Jakarta, Anies Baswedan, who also ran against Prabowo for the presidency. The force behind the moves to block Anies is widely thought to be former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
Having picked Prabowo as his successor, the former president is still a force to be reckoned with – seen as a near equal of Prabowo. And Jokowi has an enduring distaste for Anies due to the latter’s divisive 2017 governor’s campaign, during which Anies sided with Islamist-led protests calling for the imprisonment of the Chinese Christian incumbent and Jokowi’s friend Basuki “Ahok” Purnama on blasphemy charges.
Before Anies could be nominated, various parties that had previously backed him for governor and president abandoned ship in favor of Ridwan. Meanwhile, Ridwan was nominated to run in Jakarta. Suswono, a former minister and member of Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), which is the largest party in the Jakarta legislature, was installed as his running mate.
Ridwan’s only apparent opponent was set to be Dharma, running as an independent. Best known for promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19, there was widespread speculation Dharma was a Potemkin candidate put up to avoid Ridwan running uncontested. This is because in contests with only one candidate Indonesian voters can vote for a “blank box” instead of for the candidate on offer. If more than 50 percent do so, it automatically triggers a re-election.
However, these plans were thrown into chaos in August by a Constitutional Court ruling, which unexpectedly lowered nomination thresholds. The party best placed to take advantage of this was the PDI-P. There were suggestions that the party might nominate Anies for the Jakarta election. Such a pairing would have been awkward: Anies, steeped in Islamic politics, running with a nationalist-secularist party that had been the home of Ahok. But there is also evidence of pressure from the very top to keep him off the ticket in Jakarta and then West Java. Instead, at the last moment, the PDI-P nominated Pramono for Jakarta.
Cynics saw a “heads I win, tails you lose” race for the Prabowo-Jokowi partnership. Despite last-minute ructions, Anies was off the ticket, and Pramono seemed like a weak candidate. He had little public profile and admitted to being surprised by his own nomination. Even if he did win, this is a man who had served Jokowi as a loyal cabinet secretary for nearly 10 years, and quickly made shows of friendliness toward Prabowo following his nomination.
However, Pramono has since upended expectations, establishing himself as a vigorous candidate and looks to have established an edge against Ridwan. Recent polls from reliable institutions have consistently shown Pramono in the lead. However, this has varied from a narrow 1.6 percent to a commanding 6.9 percent, and with no candidate polling over 50 percent, a second round looks likely.
Policies have played a limited role in the campaign so far. Pramono’s and Ridwan’s policy promises are not just similar – promising action on housing, education, flooding, and pollution as well as various welfare giveaways – but are identical in some cases. Both candidates have shamelessly copied each other’s policies. Pramono promised free public transport for 15 groups, Ridwan for 17 groups. Both have also promised to offer free WiFi across the city. Ridwan has perhaps been more creative, with plans including moving the governor’s office to the north of the city, a “Disneyland” on the islands off the coast, and public exercise equipment at bus stops – but this has often become fuel for mockery by opponents.
The contest is therefore one of image and political machinery. Here Ridwan should theoretically have an advantage on both fronts. “I’m selling my track record,” Ridwan told The Diplomat when asked what distinguished him from his opponent. He left his post as governor of West Java with sky-high approval ratings.
His brand was weaker in Jakarta, but he still arrived with a positive national image and his background as an architect lent credibility to his plans to combat the housing, traffic, and pollution problems that beset the city. By contrast, Pramono’s track record as a consummate party insider and lack of prior exposure to the public should be a harder sell.
However, Pramono hit the ground hard with sometimes dozens of events a day across the city to introduce himself to voters. Meanwhile, Ridwan’s track record has at times been turned against him with his strong association with West Java seized upon to attack him as a carpetbagging outsider.
Stickers in a South Jakarta neighborhood unfavorably contrast Ridwan’s backers with Pramono’s backing from the PDI-P. Credit: Joseph Rachman
Much of the fire has focused on Ridwan’s close past connection to Persib Bandung, West Java’s most popular football team and arch-rival of Persija Jakarta, which has become a particular point of attack. Off the record, Ridwan’s campaign team grumbles how much more cynical Jakartan voters and media seem to be than West Javan ones, taking a mean-spirited delight in mocking candidates. The Pramono campaign has lent into this. His campaign material has eschewed the PDI-P’s traditional red color scheme in favor of orange, one of Persija’s colors.
Pramono’s greatest asset, however, is his running mate Rano Karno, who lends the East Javan politician Pramono both charm and Jakarta bona fides. A former actor, Rano is best known for his role in “Si Doel Anak Betawi,” as the titular Doel, a character who is Betawi – an ethnic group native to Jakarta that still forms the capital’s second biggest ethnic group after the Javanese. Rano, widely affectionately known as Bang (Brother) Doel, has brought massive positive name recognition to the campaign, especially among older voters.
Indeed, when pollsters ask about voters’ preference between Ridwan and Pramono, the former actually comes out slightly ahead. But when the candidate pairings are polled, Ridwan-Suswono vs Pramono-Rano, Pramono edges ahead. “We rarely see such a strong effect from a vice-governor. It’s a very effective pick,” says Kennedy Muslim, a senior researcher at the pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia.
As the campaign has become more competitive, Indonesia’s political players are raising the stakes and brokering strange new alignments. “What’s to my surprise is how open Pak Jokowi is campaigning for me,” Ridwan admitted to The Diplomat. Jokowi’s past relationship with Pramono meant many expected the former president to remain fairly neutral.
Prabowo has also offered his implicit support to Ridwan, holding a public dinner with the candidate. “There were lots of rumors that Pak Prabowo might be leaning to Pram,” Ridwan said. “But in the end, Pak Prabowo invited me for dinner and that changes everything.”
Pramono, meanwhile, has secured the endorsement of Anies. Their alliance seems incongruous given that Pramono is also enthusiastically backed by Ahok, i.e. the man Anies helped sweep out of power and into prison. But this is no less strange than the fact that Jokowi’s backing of Ridwan has put him in alignment with the Islamic Defenders Front, former spearheads of the anti-Ahok campaign.
Pramono also secured meetings with politicians from parties backing Ridwan as a way of quietly suggesting their support for his rival may be less than total. A meeting with former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose son leads the Democrat party, was well publicized. The same went for an ostentatiously casual visit to Pramono’s house by Jakartan politicians from seven parties that are nominally backing Ridwan.
“The strategy of this campaign is that Mas Pram is a man with no political enemies, and is the first man who embraces all political parties,” said Aristiawan Yodi, a spokesperson for the Pramono campaign.
The effect of these maneuvers remains unclear, though Pramono may have established an edge. “I think Jokowi’s endorsement will have an effect but much more limited compared to other provinces in Indonesia,” said Muslim. “I would argue even that Anies’ endorsement will have more sway in Jakarta.”
Factors behind this include Jakarta’s relatively highly educated electorate. This makes it more likely to be put off by Jokowi’s late-term political maneuvering, which critics say damaged Indonesia’s democracy, and Anies’ own formidable popularity among groups usually inclined towards Ridwan.
Speaking to The Diplomat, Ridwan projected confidence, saying that Jokowi’s endorsement had helped push formidable pro-Jokowi forces to campaign for him. But speaking off the record, some on Ridwan’s team seemed quietly dubious about how much of an impact Jokowi would have.
On Pramono’s side, there is some evidence that the endorsement of Anies and the courting of other parties has paid dividends. A number of campaign operatives associated with Anies have moved to work for Pramono, bringing with them networks in the capital.
Recent polls show that a large subsection of voters who identify as supporters of the Islamist PKS are supporting Pramono. Anies it seems has a stronger appeal than Ridwan or his obscure PKS running mate. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the cadres of other parties formally backing Ridwan may be less than enthusiastic.
But Ridwan dismissed such claims, pointing to the fact that PDI-P cadres quietly supported him. More importantly, he expected right-wing Muslim voters who previously supported Anies to come home on election day. “They see Anies as a bit questionable,” he said, “because he’s on the right side and suddenly he’s supporting the left. So, not all his groups are comfortable with this logic.”
The mixed coalitions that have emerged have prompted both candidates to label the campaign a “reconciliation” campaign. Bitter rivals from previous divisive elections, especially the 2017 gubernatorial contest, are now arm in arm. In fact, it may mark the emergence of new dividing lines in Indonesian politics. Behind Ridwan stands the Jokowi-Prabowo alliance, while Pramono is backed by the few major forces that stand, if not opposed to the new order, at least a step removed from it.
How Jakartans vote will therefore offer an early sign of how successful the Jokowi-Prabowo alliance’s push to discipline Indonesia’s political system will be. A victory for Ridwan in Jakarta would leave it feeling confident. Jokowi, in particular, who is also throwing his weight behind a candidate in Central Java, will want to see if he can still shape politics after leaving office.
Meanwhile, a victory for Pramono would suggest to the PDI-P and Anies that they can still exert political sway even in the face of political isolation. They would stand encouraged to remain apart from the Prabowo administration, or at least demand a higher price for accommodating it. Other parties may also take it as a sign that selective defiance of the new administration could be politically rewarding.
One should be careful not to exaggerate. Compared to the unprecedentedly divisive 2017 Jakarta governor’s campaign, the electioneering this year is extremely civilized. And, even should Pramono win, this result will still be acceptable to an establishment that for now has successfully kept Anies locked out of political office.
However, an upset win where just a few months ago everything seemed sewn up would be a sign that the ability of the new political order’s ability to tame Indonesia’s unruly political forces remains limited.