Ahok taking Jakarta governor’s race down to the wire http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/ahok-taking-jakarta-governors-race-down-to-the-wire/news-story/9750ab89c44a68c27fbfceb03f4bfd5b http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/22c7c12ec0e55aee9c0e52fd7b682b86?width=1024 Ahok consults with his lawyers during his trial on April 11, 2017. AMANDA HODGE http://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/Amanda+Hodge, NIVELL RAYDA http://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/Nivell+Rayda The Australian 12:00AM April 17, 2017 Save http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/ahok-taking-jakarta-governors-race-down-to-the-wire/news-story/9750ab89c44a68c27fbfceb03f4bfd5b# Share on Facebook http://facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Fahok-taking-jakarta-governors-race-down-to-the-wire%2Fnews-story%2F9750ab89c44a68c27fbfceb03f4bfd5b&t=Jakarta%20race%20goes%20down%20to%20wire Share on Twitter https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Fahok-taking-jakarta-governors-race-down-to-the-wire%2Fnews-story%2F9750ab89c44a68c27fbfceb03f4bfd5b&text=Jakarta%20race%20goes%20down%20to%20wire Share on email mailto:?subject=Jakarta%20race%20goes%20down%20to%20wire&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Fahok-taking-jakarta-governors-race-down-to-the-wire%2Fnews-story%2F9750ab89c44a68c27fbfceb03f4bfd5b Share more... http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/ahok-taking-jakarta-governors-race-down-to-the-wire/news-story/9750ab89c44a68c27fbfceb03f4bfd5b#share-tools http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/ahok-taking-jakarta-governors-race-down-to-the-wire/news-story/9750ab89c44a68c27fbfceb03f4bfd5b#comments Among the many hundreds of election-related banners — some threatening — strung up around Jakarta in recent months one stood out this week for its rarity. It read simply: “Basuki/Djarot outpost” and was strung up in the 11th hour of a gubernatorial election with repercussions potentially greater than the immediate future of Indonesia’s capital. The few reliable local polls say Jakarta’s ethnic-Chinese Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja “Ahok” Purnama is still considered by a majority of voters to be the most capable man for the job, though not the one most will choose. His running mate is Djarot Saiful Hidayat. With just few days until Wednesday’s run-off vote, his rival candidate Anies Baswedan, a former education minister and Islamic scholar, is leading in the polls by between one and six percentage points — though analysts say there may be hidden support for the incumbent. Declaring support for Ahok, who is on trial for blasphemy, has become a perilous enterprise in Jakarta in recent months. Voters have been warned that Muslims must only vote for Muslims, and many mosques have displayed banners warning families who support Ahok will be refused Muslim burial rites. That message is catching on. An October survey by Saiful Mujani found 45 per cent of Jakarta’s Muslim voters agreed a Muslim should not be led by a non-Muslim. This month the figure had risen to 65 per cent. About 85 per cent of Jakarta voters are Muslim. This week the Ahok team launched a television commercial appealing to Jakarta’s 7.1 million voters to look beyond religion and race, and vote for diversity. Such is the absurdist theatre into which this campaign has degenerated, the ad sparked immediate allegations of racism — presumably for its depiction in one scene of the 1998 Jakarta riots that targeted the ethnic-Chinese community. The ad has since been pulled and edited. Ahok’s rivals, who most analysts agree have heavily capitalised on the blasphemy allegations against him to harness the Muslim vote, have also accused him of playing the race and religion card during the campaign. “For me it is not about race and religion,” Anies’s running mate Sandiaga Uno said last week. “It’s about providing good jobs and quality education and making sure the cost of living is within reach of the average Jakartan. It was him who introduced race and religion into this race,” he said, brushing aside evidence his campaign courted fringe Islamist groups and played up its Muslim credentials. In fact, religion became a Jakarta election issue after an alliance of politicians and clerics gathered last September at the city’s Istiqlal mosque and — amidst a barrage of sectarian epithets against Ahok — decreed Muslims should vote only for Muslims. Ahok’s blasphemy charge stems from a light-hearted attempt to challenge that edict during an October speech. So common has this brand of identity politics become in Indonesia it has its own abbreviation, SARA which translates as Ethnicity, Religion, Race and Class. President Joko Widodo was dogged by it in the 2012 gubernatorial race, and again in the 2014 presidential campaign, when opponents wrongly claimed his mother was a Christian and so he was not a proper Muslim. Ahok has faced it his entire career. But Tobias Basuki, a political analyst with Jakarta’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says Anies has gone further than other politicians by lending credibility to extremist figures such as Rizieq Shabib, leader of the hardline Islamic Defenders’ Front which has led the push for Ahok’s jailing. For all the dirty politics, Australian National University’s Marcus Mietzner says the contest will be very close and “for the first time since the first round vote in February, it appears Ahok has a fighting chance again”. Ahok won the first round, but fell short of the 50.1 per cent needed to secure outright victory. Paramadina University political science professor Hendri Satrio says Jakarta voters are easily swayed, which makes it hard to predict the winner “regardless of what the surveys say”. “Anies’ relationship with hardline groups proved to be both his strength and stumbling block. He has no control over them and the biggest blunder was when these groups started erecting banners saying ‘don’t provide burial rites for those supporting Ahok’,” he said. That proved too much for some moderates and convinced two of the country’s biggest Islamic parties — the PPP and the National Awakening Party — to support Ahok. In the end, says Hendri, it will come down to which candidate best avoids “stupid mistakes”. “If Ahok can avoid saying stuff like, ‘those who don’t vote for me are intolerant’, and Anies doesn’t say stuff like ‘those who don’t vote for me will go to hell’, then they both have a shot.” At the central Jakarta food stall next door to the lone Basuki/Djarot banner, waiter Is Ramdan says none of that matters to him. “I want a Muslim leader,” he says. Across the road, the proprietor of a vintage hi-fi business that has operated out of the same stall since 1965, says he likes and appreciates Ahok. “It gives me shivers when I think of all the things he has achieved for this city, but what can I do?” he says. “I am a Muslim. I have a responsibility to my God.”
[GELORA45] Ahok taking Jakarta governor’s race down to the wire
[email protected] [GELORA45] Sun, 16 Apr 2017 12:01:00 -0700
