The Seed of Opposition from Jakarta

December 18, 2024 | 06:23 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Prabowo Subianto refused a demand from the Ridwan Kamil-Suswono pair to challenge the Jakarta gubernatorial election results. Signs of divergence with Jokowi.

IT is only appropriate that Ridwan Kamil and Suswono cancel their plan to challenge the results of the Jakarta gubernatorial election at the Constitutional Court. Apart from the significant vote margin and the lack of evidence of violations, the attempt to request a second round could be suspected as a scheme to win the contest dishonestly.

The Jakarta Regional General Election Commission declared Pramono Anung and Rano Karno as winners in a single round for garnering 50.07 percent of the vote. Ridwan Kamil’s threat to sue the decision was canceled at the last minute before the deadline was up for registering election disputes on December 11, 2024.

The Ridwan-Suswono pair is supported by the Indonesia Onward Coalition (KIM) Plus, a conglomeration of all the political parties having the vote in the Jakarta Regional Legislative Council, minus the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Originally, they wished to make issue of the uneven distribution of the C6 form, which informs voters of their right to vote, which resulted in voter participation floating at below 60 percent. According to the pair, this was evidence of structural, systematic and massive violation of the election procedure.

Their demand was for voting to be reorganized in several locations. To reach a winning vote, the Ridwan-Suswono camp needed only to reduce the Pramono-Rano vote by 0.07 percent, or 2,975 votes, equivalent to the number of voters in some six or seven ballot booths. If that had succeeded, the Pramono-Rano single round victory would be annulled and elections would be conducted for a second round. In such a second round, the Ridwan-Suswono pairing was convinced they would win.

Ridwan and Suswono’s loss was a blow to Joko Widodo and President Prabowo Subianto, whom from the outset had no wish for Jakarta to be led by cadres of the PDI-P, currently the lone opposition party. Until the very last moment, Jokowi insisted on filing the lawsuit with the Constitutional Court.

Prabowo also wanted a second round. However, due to the significant vote margin and the lack of strong evidence to justify a re-vote, the General Chair of the Gerindra Party did not approve the plan to file a lawsuit. Prabowo refused the request from Jokowi. In the final say, politics is after all a perpetual calculation of advantages and disdvantages.

The Jakarta gubernatorial election is now an anomaly among the successful Jokowi-Prabowo collaboration in several regional head elections. Candidate pairs supported by Jokowi-Prabowo in Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra, and North Sulawesi easily defeated the competition. Much like Ridwan and Suswono, these regional heads and deputies are foot soldiers under the command of Prabowo or Jokowi to become heads of provinces. They did not go forth into the competition with ideas and concepts. Later, emerged accusations that they won as a result of interference by the police and government apparatus. The term parcok, or partai cokelat (brown party, referring to the color of the police uniform) became widely used to describe police guerilla tactics in a number of elections to ensure victory for the candidates supported by Prabowo and Jokowi.

Pramono and Rano’s victory is a reflection of how fed-up the Jakarta residents are with the many dirty practices conducted during the elections. People tired of Jokowi’s antics quietly voted for Pramono in their ballot booth, or decided not to vote (popularly known as golput, alias non-voters), or ‘mischievously voted for the unknown candidate pair Dharma Pongrekun-Kun Warda. Even supporters of the KIM Plus did not all vote for the Ridwan-Suswono candidacy. In Jakarta, money politics did not seem to have necessarily worked.

What did work instead was support from former Jakarta governors, Anies Baswedan and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama alias Ahok. Exit polls by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting on November 27, 2024, revealed that the support from Anies and Ahok had a positive effect on the vote for Pramono and Rano. Coversely, Jokowi and Prabowo’s support did not have a similar positive effect on voters for Ridwan and Suswono.

On another note, Jakarta residents also felt a need to show opposition towards Prabowo, Jokowi, and the huge supporting coalition behind the two. The evaporation of an effective opposition in the 10 years of Jokowi’s administration has given us a valuable lesson. As a result of the non-existence of effective process of checks and balances, our statehood has suffered considerable damages.

In other words, the Pramono-Rano victory in the Jakarta election shows good news regarding public awareness towards democracy. This bright hope should not be smirched by corruption and opportunistic politics. Pramono Anung and the PDI-P need to maintain Jakarta as the yardstick for assessing professionalism and political maturity in this country.

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