Indonesian Election
Indonesian Election
Dynamics, Potential candidate and Policy Prospects
UPDATES:On February 14, Indonesians will participate in a significant event known as the "festival of democracy," involving the election of a new president, vice president, parliamentary members, and local representatives. This single-day election, the largest of its kind globally, will involve over 204 million registered voters out of the country's population of 270 million.There are 18 national political parties across Indonesia, with 575 parliamentary seats up for grabs
Prabowo's increasing electability, boosted by populist policies from President Joko Widodo, suggests a potential single-round win. However, undecided voters and historical voting patterns could sway the outcome. Additionally, turnout rates, particularly among younger voters targeted by Prabowo's campaign, may impact the results. If Prabowo fails to secure victory initially, Anies Baswedan emerges as a strong contender for the second round, leveraging effective social media campaigns to gain momentum.
Their campaign narratives: Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar (Team AMIN) offer “change”, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka “continuity”, and Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD “improvement”. These keywords also capture their main policy approaches for key issues in development.
Ganjar Pranowo (L), frontrunner Prabowo Subianto (C) and Anies Baswedan (R) will face off in this year's presidential election in Indonesia © Yasuyoshi CHIBA, Adek BERRY / AFP (By RFI)
Indonesia election 2024: All you need to know
Indonesians will go to the polls on February 14 in what is dubbed a “festival of democracy”.
They will be choosing not only a new president and vice president but also parliamentary and local representatives – in the world’s largest single-day election.
More than 204 million of Indonesia’s 270 million people are registered to vote, and while voting is not compulsory, election day is a public holiday so turnout is generally high – 81 percent at the last election in 2019, according to Indonesia’s General Election Commission.
There are 18 national political parties across Indonesia, with 575 parliamentary seats up for grabs.
The current Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, has already served the maximum two terms in office, so this year’s election will mark the first change in leadership in 10 years.
Even Sembiring, the director of the Indonesian Forum for Environment in Riau (WALHI Riau) described the election as an “opportunity for healing” for Indonesian voters and “an important moment of potential to restore Indonesia for the next five years”.
However, some believe that whoever wins, it is likely to be business as usual in the world’s third-largest democracy.
“Given the relatively thin policy platforms of the three candidates and the fact that they’ve all largely pledged continuity, and been governors or cabinet members, it’s not a particularly significant departure from Jokowi’s platform,” said Judith Jacob, the director of geopolitical risk and security intelligence at risk management company Forward Global.
Here is all you need to know about the election.
Who are the candidates?
There are three presidential and vice presidential pairings vying for the top jobs including a former military general, a one-time academic and a self-professed “man of the people”.
Indonesia’s Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto is making his third attempt at the presidency [Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP]
Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka:
Prabowo Subianto is a 72-year-old former military strongman and Indonesia’s current defence minister. He is running for the top job for a third time, having lost to Jokowi in 2014 and 2019.
Prabowo has long been criticised for his time in the military and has been accused of, but never charged with, the kidnappings of more than 20 pro-democracy activists at the end of the 1990s, about a dozen of whom have never been found.
He has also been accused of human rights abuses in East Timor and Papua and was discharged from the military in 1998 and banned from entering the United States until 2020, after he became defence minister under Jokowi.
His running mate, 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is also a controversial candidate.
Gibran is Jokowi’s eldest son and was originally considered out of the running as he did not meet the minimum 40-year-old age requirement for presidential and vice presidential candidates. However, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court ruled last October that younger candidates could run if they had previously been elected to public office, a decision that cleared the way for Gibran, who is the current mayor of Surakarta, also known as Solo.
The decision was clouded by accusations of nepotism because the head of the court at the time was Anwar Usman, Jokowi’s brother-in-law.
Gibran Rakabuming Raka is the eldest son of outgoing President Joko Widodo and Prabowo’s running mate [Aditya Aji/AFP]
Prabowo is the head of Gerindra, a nationalist, right-wing populist political party, and has the backing of a coalition of other parties including Golkar and the National Mandate Party (PAN).
Although Prabowo and Gibran do not have Jokowi’s explicit endorsement (the incumbent president is supposed to remain neutral), they are seen as the “continuity” candidates.
They have pledged to move ahead with Jokowi’s initiative to make Indonesia one of the world’s top five largest economies by 2045, as well as many of his infrastructure projects including moving the capital from Jakarta to the purpose-built city of Nusantara on the island of Borneo.
Prabowo has also said he plans to build three million new homes in rural, coastal and urban areas, and launch a free lunch programme for schoolchildren in a policy designed to combat stunting.
Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD:
Ganjar Pranowo is the 55-year-old former governor of Central Java and is a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), a secular nationalist political party that backed Jokowi for the presidency in 2014 and 2019 and is led by Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno.
Ganjar is running with 66-year-old Mahfud MD, the former coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, and the candidates also have the support of the United Development Party (PPP), the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Indonesian Unity Party (Perindo).
Ganjar and Mahfud have pitched themselves as two men of humble origins who understand the people of Indonesia.
Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD have the backing of the secular nationalist PDI-P [Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP]
They say they have travelled the length and breadth of the country to listen to the concerns of ordinary Indonesians, and have run a campaign based on improving their lives, partly through the wider distribution of social assistance under a programme known as KTP Sakti.
They have also pledged to raise salaries for civil servants, teachers and lecturers.
Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar:
Anies Baswedan is the former governor of Jakarta and is running as an independent and “opposition” candidate in the election. The 54-year-old was educated in the US, entered academia and later went into politics as education minister.
He sparked controversy when he ran for the governorship of Jakarta in 2017 and was accused of using identity politics against his rival Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, who ended up jailed for blasphemy.
Anies’s running mate Muhaimin Iskandar, 57, is the deputy speaker of the People’s Representative Council and the leader of the National Awakening Party (PKB), the largest Muslim political party in Indonesia. They are also backed by the NasDem party and another Muslim party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
Anies and Muhaimin are running on a promise to make Indonesia “just and prosperous” by, among other things, building 40 new cities across the country and cancelling Jokowi’s plan for Nusantara.
They have also pledged to promote equal opportunities for small business owners in order to create more jobs across Indonesia.
Anies Baswedan studied in the US and was an academic before turning his hand to politics [Achmad Ibrahim/AP Photo]
What are the main election issues?
As in many countries around the world, Indonesians’ main concern is the cost of living and being able to provide for themselves and their families.
Economic growth slowed to 5.05 percent in 2023 compared with 5.3 percent the year before, according to Statistics Indonesia, mostly as a result of weak exports and lower commodity prices.
With people under 40 making up about half the total number of registered voters, employment is a key concern.
According to Statistics Indonesia, the unemployment rate in August 2023 was 5.32 percent and the average monthly wage across Indonesia was 3.18 million rupiahs ($203).
Other issues include human rights and democratic decline in Indonesia, with student protests flaring across university campuses in recent weeks as staff and students at some of Indonesia’s largest and most prominent universities including Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and Universitas Indonesia have spoken out about the need for fair and transparent elections.
“The student actions over the past few days have the potential to be Indonesia’s largest student protest movement since 1997 and 1998. There are more students and university leaders expressing their concerns and grievances during the current protests compared to the other protests,” Alex Arifianto, a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.
“The government has to be very careful in how it chooses to deal with the new movement, especially if it grows faster after February 14 if students become unhappy with the results.”
Some students have taken to the streets over concerns that Jokowi is not maintaining the neutrality required by the outgoing president [Dita Alangkara/AP Photo]
How does the election work?
Come February 14, polling stations across Indonesia’s three time zones (GMT +7/8/9), will open at 7am and close at 1pm.
All voters over the age of 17 will be given five different ballot papers to choose presidential and vice presidential candidates, as well as representatives at national, provincial, regional, and regency and city levels. Depending on the area, some polling stations are likely to see long queues as voters turn out early in an effort to escape the searing Indonesian heat that builds throughout the day.
In the voting booth, people make their choice by piercing the ballot paper with a nail in a process known as “coblos” which means “to punch”. It is felt that using a nail to punch a hole in the ballot paper makes it harder to manipulate votes.
Votes are counted in public at polling stations, with the paper ballots held up so everyone can see the light shining through the pierced hole as the names of the chosen candidates are read aloud. Once they have voted, every voter dips their little finger in indelible ink to guard against casting multiple votes.
“The anatomy of the sheer numbers of voters involved makes the Indonesian election the largest one-day election in the world,” Titi Anggraini, an advisory board member of the Association for Elections and Democracy and a constitutional law lecturer at Universitas Indonesia, told Al Jazeera.
“The combination of simultaneous elections with an open proportional system which is carried out manually also makes the Indonesian election one of the most complicated and complex elections in the world.”
A ballot paper from 2019 showing a hole – and therefore a vote – for Jokowi [File: Binsar Bakkara/AP Photo]
The process at the polling stations will be overseen by about seven million election officials and independent workers.
In 2019, more than 890 election workers died following the exhaustive polls.
When can we expect a result?
There are more than 820,000 polling stations across Indonesia, an archipelago made up of some 17,000 islands, and the count starts as soon as voting closes.
Many polling stations use a “quick count” – based on a sampling method – to give an early indication of where things are headed.
A preliminary result from the elections commission is likely to be announced on the evening of February 14, but the official result could take as long as 35 days. Much depends on whether the vote is close.
Any legal complaints by any of the candidates involved, including the three sets of presidential and vice presidential hopefuls, will need to be filed within 35 days of the election.
On his previous two outings, Prabowo challenged the result through Indonesia’s Constitutional Court.
In 2019, the legal challenge and accusation of vote rigging and ballot tampering sparked violent protests across the country that left nine people dead.
Who can vote?
Any Indonesian citizen who is 17 or older can vote.
About 52 percent of registered voters are under the age of 40, and about a third of the total are under the age of 30, making the “youth vote” an important one.
This year, 49.91 percent of registered voters are male and 50.09 percent are female.
Members of the Indonesian police and the military are banned from voting.
What happens after February 14?
Presidential candidates need 50 percent of the overall vote and at least 20 percent of votes in each province in order to claim victory. Political parties need four percent of the vote in order to enter parliament.
According to many Indonesian pollsters, Prabowo is leading the polls, although he continues to hover close to the 50 percent mark, meaning that he may not be able to claim an outright win in the first round.
If no single candidate passes the 50 percent threshold, the top two candidate pairs will go into a second and final round on June 26.
The new president will be inaugurated in October.
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Take from Fulcrum
Indonesia’s Presidential Election: The Limitations of Surveys on Electability
Days before Indonesians vote for their next president, a cliffhanger situation is unfolding. Credible polls now show that the Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka team is comfortably ahead with an “electability” rating of about 48 to 52 per cent against the other two candidate pairs, who are trailing in the mid-20 per cent range. What is unclear is whether Prabowo will be able to win outright in one round or forced into a run-off in late June. (Indonesian electoral law stipulates that if no candidate can surpass a national vote of 50 per cent plus 1, including 20 per cent of the vote in at least half of Indonesia’s 38 provinces, a run-off election will be held.)
Too many factors are at play to accurately predict whether there will be one or two rounds. Those who believe in an outright win are basing their analysis on data from various public opinion surveys showing that support for Prabowo might have increased throughout January 2024.
In December 2023, Indikator reported Prabowo’s electability to be 45.8 per cent, which rose to 48.6 per cent in mid-January. At the end of January, a poll by a different pollster, LSI Denny JA, showed Prabowo’s rating to be 50.7 per cent. According to a survey conducted in early February by a reputable poll taker, Populi, Prabowo’s electability had increased to 52.5 per cent.
Some believe this trend will continue until 14 February, voting day, especially as President Joko Widodo whose oldest son Gibran is Prabowo’s running mate has launched a populist policy package. In a move criticised by some as biased and reportedly done without involving the relevant minister, Widodo authorised a three-month lump sum of direct cash assistance (of Rp 600,000, about US$38) to be distributed to needy Indonesians in early February. This was given out along with an extra 10 kilogrammes of rice per recipient. Meanwhile, an announcement of an eight per cent salary increase for central and regional civil servants, military, and police personnel was made, and for their retired counterparts, an increase of 12 per cent in their pensions.
The opposition to Prabowo still holds hopes of a two-round election. It is unlikely that Prabowo-Gibran have surpassed the 50 per cent threshold for their electability.
While imperfect, surveys can predict the likelihood of one versus two rounds of voting. Recent surveys indicate that the probability of a single round might be increasing but pre-election surveys depend on complex, dynamic parameters with many variables involved. (In statistics, these are called random parameters.) A key determinant is the substantial group of swing and undecided voters. For instance, a mid-January Indikator survey found that 13.1 per cent of those with an electoral preference for a particular candidate were still very likely to change their vote. This casts uncertainty on voting day.
Another unknown is how undecided voters will vote. The same Indikator survey showed that a month prior to voting day, 5.7 per cent of respondents had not decided for whom they would vote. If these undecided voters are distributed proportionally, Prabowo could possibly win in one round. However, previous elections show that undecided voters tend to flock to candidates perceived as the main opposition to the incumbent.
If survey respondents do not act on their political preferences … to cast their vote in person, this latent support will not materialise into actual votes.
In 2019, in the month prior to the election, an Indikator survey showed the Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin pairing at 55.4 per cent electability, while Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno received 37.4 per cent, with undecided voters at 7.2 per cent. The actual election results showed that almost all the undecided voters had flocked to Prabowo’s camp. If this pattern repeats itself in 2024, Anies Baswedan, now perceived as the main opposition to the incumbent Widodo who supports Prabowo-Gibran, will gain an advantage.
Anies’ advantage is vis-à-vis not just Prabowo but also Ganjar Pranowo, whose polling numbers have not recovered since the campaign pairs were announced.
The final factor is the turnout rate of each candidate pair’s supporters on election day. If survey respondents do not act on their political preferences (unlike passively answering a survey when telephoned or visited face-to-face by pollsters) to cast their vote in person, this latent support will not materialise into actual votes.
One’s age may influence participation in voting. While this could affect all three candidates’ shares, it might affect Prabowo-Gibran the most, as their campaign has targeted younger and first-time voters with cartoon versions of the candidates on billboards and posters, social media, and stumping using Prabowo’s “gemoy” image. The gap in voter turnout rate, at least in the previous election, as a Center for Strategic and International Studies (Jakarta) Cyrus Network (CSIS-CN) exit poll held on 17 April 2019 found, was 41.9 per cent for those aged 17-35 years old compared to 58.9 per cent for voters aged over 35 years old.
If this pattern repeats itself in 2024, especially since election day falls on Valentine’s Day, Prabowo’s actual electability, projected to depend heavily on young or first-time voters, will be adversely affected. This opens the opportunity for two rounds of election. This Gen-Z and Millennial paradox is where the two generational groups will form the largest cohort of Indonesian voters (56 per cent, according to the official Permanent Voter List) yet present a challenge, given their notoriously low turnout (compared to older voters).
However, if voter abstentions are distributed proportionally across all supporters of all three presidential candidates, then an outright victory is still open for Prabowo.
If Prabowo fails to win in one round, in this author’s view, Anies seems to be the candidate with a bigger prospect of advancing to a second round. He seems to be gaining electoral momentum, as reflected in many polls. His campaign has been using social media and other methods as effective campaign tools. His team launched innovations like the “Challenge Anies” (Desak Anies) events, where young audience members can ask him any question in person (which are livestreamed on TikTok), as well as the “Anies Bubble” (an X and Instagram fan account that features Anies looking like a Korean pop star), and others, which have generated much enthusiasm.
Referring to the factors above, a certainty is that Indonesia’s pre-election polls have not concluded whether the upcoming election will take place in one round or two. Let the voters decide.
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Policy Possibilities after Indonesia’s Presidential Election 2024
Indonesia’s Presidential Election (PE) 2024 is just around the corner. On Valentine’s Day, the first round of voting will take place. A second round – which will happen if no candidate pair wins at least 50 per cent of the national vote plus one and at least 20 per cent in half of Indonesia’s 38 provinces – will be on 26 June.
From a national development perspective, the three pairs: Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar (Team AMIN), Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka, and Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD, each have their ways to shape the future of Indonesia. What would the policy possibilities post-PE2024 look like? What are the potential impacts on Indonesia’s development trajectory?
As policy (content) cannot be separated from politics (process) and polity (culture), it is important to start answering the question by examining what the presidential nominees’ campaigns reveal about the state of the Indonesian political elite.
In terms of coalition building, there have been shifting alliances and power dynamics among the elite. The coalition that supported President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) in his 2014 and 2019 campaigns has now split. Most have gone to Prabowo-Gibran, who have a more populist agenda, some to Ganjar-Mahfud, seen as representing the nationalists, and the remainder to Team AMIN, who claim to be reformist. Thus, their campaign narratives: Team AMIN offer “change”, Prabowo-Gibran “continuity”, and Ganjar-Mahfud “improvement”. These keywords also capture their main policy approaches for key issues in development.
Despite their promise to bring about significant change, Team AMIN surprisingly set quite a conservative target of annual economic growth between 5.5 to 6.5 per cent until 2029. They aim to reach it through shared prosperity, wealth distribution, and social justice. Prabowo-Gibran’s target is 6-7 per cent with a vague, jargonistic strategy: “Jokowinomics”, interpreted as a version of a “Pancasila economy”. This is basically a system with a controlled market economy as a counterbalance against neoclassical economic tenets like individualism and free markets. Ganjar-Mahfud has set an ambitious 7 per cent growth target with a “we have all” (semua ada di kita) strategy.
From the three teams’ vision and mission documents and campaigns, there are a few similarities in their policy platforms. On promoting growth, all candidates aim to accelerate it to improve living standards and reduce poverty. On enhancing industrial development, all candidates recognise the importance of strengthening the country’s industrial base to reduce reliance on imports and strengthen export competitiveness. Last, they all agree to improve physical infrastructure to support economic activity and facilitate trade and investment.
However, the teams differ in the following ways. First, on the role of government, Team AMIN advocate limited government and greater reliance on private sector initiatives. This is likely due to the influence of their campaign advisor, former trade minister Tom Lembong, who also headed Indonesia’s national investment agency. This is in contrast to Prabowo-Gibran, who favour a more active state role in directing economic policy despite big businesses’ support. Ganjar-Mahfud takes the middle ground: in their platform, the government is the regulator and facilitator in guiding development, not an active player.
Second, on trade and liberalisation, Prabowo-Gibran’s focus on protectionism contrasts with Team AMIN’s emphasis on liberalisation and market-based solutions. Again, taking the middle stance, Ganjar-Mahfud seeks to balance the protection of domestic industries with fostering foreign direct investment-based innovation.
On social equity and environmental sustainability, Team AMIN and Ganjar-Mahfud emphasise tackling social inequality and environmental concerns, while Prabowo-Gibran’s primary focus is on growth and national self-sufficiency.
Many investors are waiting to see if Jokowi’s signature policies – including downstreaming, the proposed shift of Indonesia’s capital to Nusantara (IKN), East Kalimantan, and infrastructural development – will continue.
The answer is clearly yes. The signature policies can be grouped into three broad types, the first of which is infrastructure, particularly for connectivity, like ports, roads, and industrial complexes. All the candidates recognise that infrastructural development is crucial and have pledged to continue upholding this policy.
Second, Jokowi has emphasised social protection, particularly social assistance. All candidates understand that this is a populist vote-winner that they must continue, even if they differ on how it is delivered. Third, all candidates will continue downstreaming (hilirisasi) as they know how important it is for Indonesia to move up the value chain. This is not limited to the mining/extractive sectors but extends to agriculture, fisheries, and even digital downstreaming. Team AMIN and Ganjar-Mahfud have declared that they will not stop at this but work towards “re-industrialisation”.
On the planned relocation of the new capital city, Prabowo-Gibran and Ganjar-Mahfud will continue this part of Jokowi’s legacy. The former pair strongly support IKN. Echoing Jokowi’s rhetoric and notwithstanding criticism from academia and civil society, Prabowo-Gibran emphasise the need to develop areas outside Java and has pledged to uphold sustainability and environmental responsibility in the IKN’s execution.
Ganjar-Mahfud has stated that they will study the project further, expressing concern about its potential impact on the local environment and livelihoods of affected communities. In their campaign, they have offered “corrective measures” for what might have been neglected in the developmental process so far, like considering the impact on indigenous groups and the mitigation of environmental problems.
Team AMIN are the most critical; they omitted discussion of the IKN in their vision and mission document. They question its feasibility and high cost, arguing that the government should focus on addressing other issues such as poverty and inequality. In the less likely scenario (given Prabowo-Gibran’s high poll ratings) that they will win PE2024, Team AMIN is unlikely to stop the project outright, even though there is growing resistance to the shift to Nusantara from the public and civil servants. At most, the relocation can be delayed, as the IKN’s status is already enshrined in a national law.
The new president and his administration will determine Indonesia’s development trajectory for the next five or ten years. Whether and to what extent the next administration can realise the vision for Indonesia’s “Golden 2045” (Indonesia Emas) centennial remains open to scrutiny.
Whoever wins, what is clear is that Indonesia must be prepared to fulfil different, creative development policy priorities to meet its challenges. All things considered, the PE2024 candidates’ proposed policies are not far-reaching enough to address the multifaceted challenges awaiting Indonesia, especially as it has aspirations to reach advanced development. Excellent technocratic capacity and strong political support must sustain and surpass what President Jokowi has achieved.
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