Election Exposes Divisions in Indonesia

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

The southeast Asian archipelago of Indonesia, with a population of some 255 million, is the world’s largest Islamic nation – almost 90 per cent of the population practises the Muslim faith.

The country has long been a beacon of religious tolerance, but this may be changing. Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, Jakarta’s ethnically Chinese and religiously Christian governor, recently lost an election after being accused of disrespecting Islam.

The governorship of the largest municipality in the country is widely seen as a steppingstone to the presidency. Purnama became the governor of Jakarta when as vice-governor, he took over from Joko Widodo, who left the post when he was elected president of Indonesia in 2014.

Purnama’s ethnicity and faith made him a double-minority in Indonesia. Still, he sought to be elected in his own right in this year’s gubernatorial election.

The first round of voting took place Feb. 15, with Purnama, at 42.9 per cent, holding a narrow lead over Anies Rasyid Baswedan, a former education minister and a Muslim, who ran second with 40.5 percent.

With neither gaining over 50 per cent, a run-off took place on April 19.

Purnama was already on trial for blasphemy after making remarks last September about the Qur’an which some Indonesians considered insulting. Worse was to come. He was sentenced to two years in jail on May 9 for blasphemy, a harsher-than-expected ruling.

The blasphemy law, rarely used before 2004, has now been deployed in more than 120 cases, helping build support for Islamists and silence dissent, remarked Andreas Harsono, the Indonesia representative for Human Rights Watch.

Efforts to stop Purnama led to rallies that were among the largest in recent years. Militant groups like the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) organized massive demonstrations.

As the second round of voting neared, the leader of the FPI, Habib Rizieq, ramped up the attacks. Banners appeared in front of mosques threatening voters with denial of Islamic burial rites should they support him.

It worked. Baswedan crushed his rival by 57.96 to 42.04 per cent in the runoff.

“A half-minute destroyed his career,” said Komaruddin Hidayat, a former rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta. Indeed, Purnama’s trial could leave him vulnerable to being jailed.

 “Intolerance is already there and has been rising,” according to Endy Bayuni, editor in chief of the Jakarta Post newspaper.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos of the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, a research institute in Jakarta, stated that “Islamization is deepening in society, especially in urban areas and cities.”

Under President Suharto’s authoritarian dictatorship, which lasted from 1965 to 1998, radical voices and organizations were pushed underground and activists were imprisoned. The transition to democracy, however, provided political space for their return.

Extremists have become more prominent since the turn of the century and have formed various militant groups, chief among them Jemaah Islamiyah, which staged attacks on targets perceived as un-Islamic, such as nightclubs. They were behind the 2002 Bali bombing, which killed more than 200 people.

Indonesia’s Constitutional Court recently struck down a law which would allow the government to annul discriminatory local religious-based laws regulating morality.

With the introduction of democracy and the decentralization of power to the local authorities, more than 440 such local ordinances have been adopted.

All of this may not bode well for the moderate Widodo and the political parties that support him, ahead of the 2019 presidential election.

Even so, Indonesia remains a largely moderate country known for a tolerance for other religions and ways of life, and support for radical groups is still limited to a fringe of Indonesian society. The major political parties remain committed to a democratic and pluralist society.