Jakarta election points to social unrest in Indonesia
By
John Roberts
22 February 2017
Preliminary results of last week’s election for the governor of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital province, indicate that the election will go to a second round on April 19. None of the three candidates gained more than the 50 percent vote required to win.
Incumbent governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, with an estimated 42.87 percent of votes, will contest the run-off against Anies Baswedan with 39.76. The third candidate, Agus Harmurti Yudhoyono, at 17.37, conceded defeat.
Basuki faced a vicious chauvinist campaign by right-wing Islamic organisations, attacking him on the basis of his Christian and ethnic Chinese profile. This was a means of exploiting and channelling the rising discontent fuelled by widening social inequality produced by the “free market” program that he shares with his predecessor as governor, President Joko Widodo.
This campaign, encouraged by his two opponents, failed to dislodge Basuki, but is continuing. His political opponents aim not only to remove him, but to weaken the Widodo administration in the run up to the 2019 presidential and national parliamentary elections.
The Islamists claim that, as a Christian, Basuki is unfit to hold the important Jakarta post in Muslim-majority Indonesia. These groups, like the prominent Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), have well-known ties with rival factions of the ruling elite. Behind the religious bigotry and racism lie definite class interests.
The Islamist groups hounded Basuki into a trial on trumped-up charges of “blasphemy” under reactionary pro-clerical laws. The trial is still ongoing. A conviction could see him jailed, even if he wins on April 19. His running mate, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)…