After Barrage of Personal Attacks, Indonesian Presidential Election Tightens

International New York Times | 5 July 2014

Joko Widodo, in Bandung on Thursday, has seen his double-digit lead shrink in a poll. Credit Timur Matahari/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The allegations have been flying thick and fast as Indonesia’s presidential election campaign nears its end.

One candidate has been accused of lying about his ethnicity, his religious affiliation and even whether he is the biological father of one of his children. The other has been branded a murderous “psychopath,” and has faced rumors that he has been debilitated by a stroke.

Smears have had a place in previous Indonesian elections, but this year’s contest, fueled by social media, has hit new lows amid fears that the mudslinging is actually swaying voters.

Indonesians will go to the polls on Wednesday to elect a successor to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who won the country’s first direct presidential election in 2004 and then re-election in 2009.

Joko Widodo, 53, the populist governor of Jakarta, is running against Prabowo Subianto, 62, a former army general during the administration of the dictator Suharto, his father-in-law. Mr. Prabowo is popular among urban and middle- and upper-class voters despite widespread allegations of human rights abuses during his military career.

Prabowo Subianto, in Central Java Province last week, was a military leader under Suharto. Credit Idhad Zakaria/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Joko, a former mayor with no link to Indonesia’s authoritarian past, had been leading the race by a comfortable margin over the past few months. But Mr. Prabowo has narrowed the gap in recent weeks, and now the race is too close to call. Though analysts believe Mr. Prabowo has won over many voters because of strong campaign appearances, they say smears against Mr. Joko have also helped. Those analysts, as well as a large study of social media, say Mr. Joko has been the target of most of the attacks during the campaign.

A nationwide survey released on June 29 by Indo Barometer, a respected polling company, found that a 13-point lead Mr. Joko had over Mr. Prabowo before official campaigning began in early June had shrunk to 3 points.

Some of the most damaging accusations — made anonymously online — suggest Mr. Joko is ethnic Chinese and a former Christian, which would turn off many in this Muslim-majority country where resentment of often-wealthier Chinese Christians runs high. Mr. Joko has repeatedly asserted he is Javanese and a Muslim, and Mr. Prabowo has not questioned that.

“Smear campaigning is difficult to detect in surveys, but I have found that people who identify themselves as ‘Muslim voters’ are now equally supporting each candidate, while before the campaign, the majority of them supported Joko Widodo — almost 50 percent to 37 percent,” said Muhammad Qodari, executive director of Indo Barometer.

“Now it’s equal at 44 percent,” he said. “I can’t think of any other conclusion except that Muslim voters are being influenced.”

The poll found that Mr. Joko’s lead among rural Indonesians — his political base — had narrowed to 5 percentage points from 13, Mr. Qodari said.

It is unclear who is behind most of the accusations that have become the topics of daily gossip among many Indonesians. Many of the rumors have been put forward in tabloid news reports, anonymous text messages and countless comments on social media sites slamming the two men.

The rumor about Mr. Joko being a Christian started online in May, when a photograph of a certificate purportedly belonging to him began circulating on social media sites stating that he was of Chinese descent and was a former Christian. A separate message that made the rounds online claimed that Mr. Joko was unable to properly perform Muslim prayers.

In early June, Obor Rakyat, a tabloid newspaper that began publishing in April, made similar allegations and later added that Mr. Joko was not the biological father of his first child.

Mr. Joko has denied the stories.

Mr. Prabowo has been a target of negative campaigning as well. In early June, A. M. Hendropriyono, a retired army general who is serving on Mr. Joko’s campaign team and who was once Mr. Prabowo’s superior officer, called Mr. Prabowo a “psychopath” during a news conference and claimed that he had failed a mental health evaluation while in the military. The military has refused to say if Mr. Prabowo passed or failed an evaluation.

Last month, after rumors spread that Mr. Prabowo had been debilitated by a stroke, journalists peppered his campaign for information.

Mr. Prabowo’s campaign denied that he had had a stroke and that he had failed the mental health evaluation; his campaign team denounced the claims and filed a complaint against Mr. Hendropriyono. Mr. Prabowo, who did have at least one stroke several years ago, has been mentally sharp during the campaign.

Still, Mr. Joko and Mr. Kalla appear to have been the target of most of the personal attacks. PoliticaWave, an Indonesian social media study group, examined 24,000 social media conversations in May and found that the ticket was targeted by a ratio of eight to one, compared with Mr. Prabowo and Hatta Rajasa, his running mate.

The intensity of the attacks, analysts say, has been fueled in part by this year’s two-ticket race.

When Indonesia held its first direct presidential election in 2004, there were five tickets. In 2009, there were three. In both contests there were limited instances of smear tactics. This time, with only Mr. Joko and Mr. Prabowo contesting — offering vastly different choices amid a charged political atmosphere — the electorate is polarized, analysts said.

Mr. Joko has been campaigning on the issues that made him a popular mayor and governor, including fighting corruption and improving education and health care. Mr. Prabowo has been more nationalistic, promoting an Indonesia-first approach to foreign investment and elaborate development projects, and promising decisive leadership.

“Like the United States, Indonesia has complex politics with high stakes, so people are willing to do a lot to win the election, including defaming their opponents,” said R. William Liddle, an emeritus professor of political science at Ohio State University, who closely monitors Indonesian and Southeast Asian politics. “If I was an Indonesian, I would be worried about how destabilizing these things could be.”

A pugnacious campaigning style appears to have become the norm in Indonesia, said Effendi Gazali, a Jakarta-based political scientist and communications analyst.

“Our politicians gradually have embraced the spirit of attacking rival campaigns, though they’ve needed to adjust to what level they think society could stand or accept,” he said.