Page 163 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

148 Chapter 8

The 2014 Presidential Election
Five years after the KPK’s public exoneration, the contending forces of democrati-
zation and reversal were suddenly embodied in the two leading candidates in the 2014
presidential election: Joko Widodo (Jokowi), a small business owner who championed
democratic reform, and Lieutenant General (Ret.) Prabowo Subianto, Suharto’s for-
mer son-in-law, who advocated a return to a more authoritarian order.
After a succession of electoral victories that carried him from the mayoralty of
Solo in 2005 to the governorship of Jakarta in 2012, Jokowi started the 2014 campaign
with a strong lead. His high popularity stemmed from his modest beginnings and
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his success in enacting populist reforms, expanding health care and education while
reducing corruption through transparency. Four months before the election, how-
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ever, Jokowi began losing ground to Prabowo, who employed a militant nationalism
while deriding Jokowi’s moderation as weakness. Prabowo also capitalized on public
frustration with corruption, blaming democracy while promising to abolish direct elec-
tions for regional heads and repeal post-Suharto constitutional amendments. Appeal-
ing to nostalgia for the country’s authoritarian past, he appeared at campaign rallies
on horseback surrounded by uniformed supporters, sporting Suharto-style dress and
Sukarno-style rhetoric.
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In the midst of this campaigning, Prabowo’s team began disseminating disin-
formation that Jokowi was Communist, Chinese-Singaporean, and secretly Chris-
tian. Aiding in this “black propaganda,” Prabowo also enjoyed heavy promotion
from media mogul Hary Tanoesoedibjo and Golkar head Aburizal Bakrie, who
together controlled five major television channels. Through these tactics and
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endorsements, Prabowo garnered growing support, primarily from the middle and
upper classes.
Other media, particularly Tempo , began challenging smears against Jokowi and
reporting on Prabowo’s checkered past in a conscious attempt to break his momen-
tum. Then in June 2014, a month before the election, an anonymous source leaked
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a military investigation’s findings that Prabowo, as commander of the Kopassus
special forces back in 1998, had ordered the abduction and torture of student activ-
ists. As social media and news outlets seized upon the report, it quickly escalated
into a national scandal. By reviving one of the most traumatic episodes of the 1998
transition, the source, believed to be a military general, used the media to damage
Prabowo. Pro-Jokowi media outlets, in turn, used the leak to increase audiences and
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counter the rise of a candidate potentially hostile to freedom of speech.
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While Prabowo’s past left him vulnerable to such attacks, for some it also
increased his strongman appeal, and his popularity continued to rise. This develop-
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ment triggered alarm among human rights organizations and other observers, who
saw it as an indication of the country’s continued susceptibility to authoritarian rever-
sal and mobilized to monitor electoral fraud. On the day of the ballot, this monitor-
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ing showed Jokowi winning by over 6 percent. Prabowo nevertheless declared victory
based on manipulated quick counts, and his allies in the media, particularly outlets
owned by Tanoesoedibjo and Bakrie, reported this victory as fact. In response, a group
called Guard the Elections (Kawal Pemilu) organized seven hundred volunteers via
Facebook to allow the public to compare official vote tallies with original data from
polling stations, an initiative crucial to discrediting Prabowo’s declaration of triumph.
Three days after Jokowi was sworn in as Indonesia’s next president in October 2014,
Prabowo finally conceded.