Frontline – July 05, 2019

wasconductedin a single day.Therewere 190 million

registered voters,anda record2,45,000 candidatescon-

testedin the presidential, parliamentaryandlocalbody

elections.Like in theIndianelection,socialmedia and

circulationof fakenewsplayeda bigrole.Mostof the

activityon FacebookandInstagramwasin favourof

Prabowo. TheoppositionallegedthatJokowi wasa

“closetChristian”withChinese ancestry.Jokowi was

previouslyallegedto have hadsecretlinkswiththeIn-

donesian Communist Party (PKI), which remains

banned despitethe endof militaryrulein the late1990s.

Morethana millionPKIactivistsandsympathisers were

killedin the Central IntelligenceAgency-backed coupin

Indonesiain 1965.

Forthe 2019 election,Jokowiformeda tacticalalli-

ancewithNahdaltulIslama,oneof thecountry’soldest

Islamistgroupings.Jokowihadthebacking of threeIs-

lamistparties,whilePrabowo,despiteprotestations of

beinga born-againMuslim,hadthe supportof onlytwo

Islamistparties.Prabowo hadpledgedto implementan

overtlyIslamistagendaif electedto office.TheIndonesian

provinceof AcehhasalreadyimplementedSharialaw.

Theresultsof the Indonesianelectionswereofficially

announcedin the third weekof May.Jokowi won55 per

centof thevotes, 17 millionvotesmorethanPrabowo.

Prabowoturnedout to be a soreloser,refusingto accept

the results,andhis supportersstaged a violentagitation

in centralJakartacausingwidespreaddestructionof

property.Six demonstrators werekilled.Theopposition

has saidthatit willcontestthe resultin court.Thiswillbe

Jokowi’slasttermin office as the IndonesianConstitu-

tionallowsa persononlytwoconsecutivefive-yearterms

as President.He willbe in a positionto act moredecis-

ivelythistimeandfaceup to fundamentalist groupings

thatbrought Jakartato a standstillseveraltimesduring

his previoustenure.

ANC VICTORY MARGINFALLS

In South Africa,theANCunderCyrilRamaphosare-

gistered a comfortablevictory in arithmeticalterms.But

it wasa setbackin politicalterms.After thevotes were

countedin the electionheldin the secondweekof May,

the rulingpartygot 58 per cent of the votes,downfrom 62

percentin the lastelection.It is thefirst timesincethe

collapseof apartheid thattheANChasgonebelowthe

symbolicallyimportantthresholdof 60 percent.The

APROTESTOUTSIDEtheElectionSupervisoryAgency(Bawaslu)headquartersin Jakarta,Indonesia,followingthe

announcementof thepresidential electionresultsonMay 22.

WILLY

KURNIA

WAN/RE

UTERS