So, the election in my country, Indonesia, is coming up on 14th February. I am going to highlight all three awful candidates.
Some background on Indonesia (just skip it if you already know) :
-
Size-wise, Indonesia is 5.2 million km2 if you count the seas. If only land area, it is around 1.9 million km2.(*1)
- Similar to the US, we have three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.
- We have two chambers in the congress, well, technically, three. House of Representatives = DPR (575 seats in the last election, 580 seats in this election), Senate = DPD (136 seats in the last election, 152 seats in this election). The third chamber is MPR, which consists of all DPR and DPD members combined.
- Indonesia is a majority Muslim country, but it has freedom of Religion and Belief in its constitution. So, Indonesia is a secular country. Regretfully, in reality, Atheism and nonmainstream religion are quite often prosecuted, persecuted, or discriminated against. (*2)
- We have a multiparty system.
- The nomination of a candidate for president requires the support of 20% of DPR members (115 seats).
- Indonesia had been under the dictatorship of President Suharto for 32 years (1967-1998). Suharto named his rule as "New Order", A bit Hitler-y.
- A single presidential term is five years, two-term maximum.
- The last president, Joko Widodo, did pretty good. Indonesia's economy survived COVID pretty much intact. Death per capita is not that bad 58/100k, although I doubt the veracity of that number.
So, the candidate's main problem, in my opinion :
- Anies Baswedan is ex-Governor of Jakarta (2017-2022). He got support from a leader of an Islamist terrorist organization (*3). When running for Governor of Jakarta, he allegedly actively seek support from Hardline Islamist organizations (*4).
- Prabowo Subianto is a general in the "New Order" government and allegedly in charge of foul play (*5 read the article, it is still kinda risky stating the obvious in Indonesia). But he mostly succeeded in laundering his image. In failed 2018 bid for president he is copying Trump, "Make Indonesia Great Again" (*6).
- Gibran Rakabuming Raka, currently the mayor of Surakarta, is the running mate for Prabowo. Gibran is the previous president's (Joko Widodo) son. The Indonesian constitution requires the president and vice president to be at least 40 years of age. Gibran is 36, but a controversial exception was made. If you previously held office in government the 40 years old minimum age is waived (*7)
- Ganjar Pranowo is the ex-Governor of Central Java (2013-2023). In early 2023 Ganjar refused to host the Israel U-20 Soccer Team in Central Java (way before the current Gaza war). There is always some anti-Israel sentiment going around in Indonesia, for a long time. In my view, Ganjar is courting people with that sentiment, most probably hardline Islamists. FIFA cancels Indonesia as the U-20 Soccer World Cup host. Soccer and Badminton are Indonesia's favorite pastimes, so, there are a lot of backlashes (*8).
And all three candidates have quite a list of alleged corruption. I'm not going to detail all those allegations, it's a lot. None of those allegation are in court anyway.
So, number 2 is the frontrunner, then number 3, last is number 1.
I got a bad feeling Indonesia is screwed royally this time around. No good choices and the frontrunner is a US-trained professional "foul player". FYI, Prabowo was trained in Fort Benning in 1985 and Fort Bragg in 1980 (*9). Also, the last president seemed to want to create a political dynasty, by making his son the next vice president.
I'm not a religious person, and maybe you are also not religious. But, you know, please pray for Indonesia.
Finally, lucky you, your choice is Biden vs Trump, Dark Brandon vs Orange Dictator. Hearing a single Trump campaign event is enough to make me hate him and make my English worse. I just wish Biden would make wise decisions regarding Gaza, it affects Indonesia too. More extreme Islamist organizations will grow here if the war drags on.
If you want to motivate me to write more, please leave comments and recommend. If you have the means, I will leave a ko-fi link here,
https://ko-fi.com/arifinchan
Also, you can comment on my English, Grammarly has been useful, but I'm not sure it's good enough.
Thank you for reading.
Sources :
- https://www.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~fujimori/article/indonesia.html
- https://fot.humanists.international/countries/asia-south-eastern-asia/indonesia/
- https://www.opensourceinvestigations.com/investigations/indonesia-backers-of-2002-bali-terror-attack-get-into-mainstream-political-arena/
- https://theconversation.com/will-jakartas-new-governor-stand-firm-against-hardline-religious-groups-76433
- https://theintercept.com/2024/02/10/indonesia-election-results-prabowo-fraud-stolen-election/
- https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/prabowo-wants-to-make-indonesia-great-again-20181020-p50awr.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/17/joko-widodos-son-can-run-for-indonesian-vice-president-after-controversial-court-ruling
- https://en.tempo.co/read/1708886/public-vent-on-ganjar-pranowos-social-media-over-u-20-world-cup-fiasco
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/indonesia/stories/rights052398.htm
