- 22/05/2024
- Category: Commentaries
Author: Lazarus Andja Karunia
Editor: M Perdana Karim
In the days of old, ideas and policies are formulated from a more finite and constrained sources – from the printing press, from pen and paper tabulations, and discussions in elite circles. Today, we have an explosion of sources that inform us of various rules and policies around us. Either from our active scouring of the Web or from algorithm-induced notifications sporadically aimed at us. Elections as a part of democracies can accentuate the need for said sources; be it for those running for office or for those casting their constitutional rights in ballots. Which is why data and information gets more screentime in today’s internet era elections – particularly the presidential election. But does greater access to information matter? Does it change discussions and voting patterns significantly?
Go Digital Archipelago
By 2024, Indonesia has around 221 million internet users with an estimated 139 million social media users (APJII, 2024; We Are Social & Meltwater, 2024), and in the context of the election, there are 204 million eligible voters (Yuniarto, 2024). Demographically, youngsters who are more digitally-tuned takes the biggest portion in all categories with Gen Zs and Millenials comprising more than 60% of internet users (APJII, 2024), more than 94% of people aged 16-30 use social media (Muhamad, 2024), and around 106 million people are young voters. With the increased piece of the demographic and political pie that the youth have, comes some changes into the political landscape. The Indonesian youth have – for most of their lives – been living in the 21st century of a digitalized world through smartphones, and the internet. This translates to their surroundings being data heavy and information just cascades into their daily lives – affecting even the way elections are formed today.
Take for example the fact that KPU have established a consolidated portal for users to track the counting of votes; to help voters get an approximation of the results. In parallel, Kawal Pemilu, an independent initiative, which crowdsources the cross-checking of vote counts against KPU’s count across the country from various independent checkers. On the other end of the voter’s journey, far back before the voting booth and vote counting, we have the novel initiative Bijak Memilih which helps voters understand the candidates that are presented this year by providing a portal that aggregates relevant data on candidates’ coalition’s party history, experience in public office, controversial cases, and many more data. Bijak Memilih is particularly helpful since even though background checks by news sites are often published near elections, it is still a momentous task to collect relevant data and information all by oneself.
Other than that, there are numerous events where candidates explain their programs and initiatives even before the campaign period such as Mata Najwa crafting an interactive event for candidates to interact with potential voters in UGM, CSIS Indonesia holding a foreign policy-focused keynote event, and from the Indonesian Chamber of Industry and Trade (KADIN) arranging for the candidates to speak heavily on economic issues, just to name a few. All of which are broadcasted live and able to be rewatched from YouTube. Those events supposedly supplement the five official KPU-sponsored debates for presidential and vice-presidential candidates. But does it really change the assumptions and preconceived notions on who to vote?
Action, Reaction, and Interaction: Intensifying political feedback
Rakesh Rajani of the Ford Foundation noted that, in the context of technology and democracy, “Technology does not drive anything. It creates new possibilities for collecting and analyzing data, mashing ideas and reaching people, but people still need to be moved to engage and find practical pathways to act.” (Carothers, 2015). The Indonesian experience seem to hint on how people would give feedback to candidates to the point that the input shape significant parts of the campaign. Particularly in the form of political memes.
Be it campaign teams, sympathizers, consultants, or the candidates themselves utilize the internet with interactions and memes within it heavily and strategically. From the ‘Park Ahn Nice’ persona for Anies Baswedan (Ramadhan, 2024), ‘Gemoy’ grandpa for Prabowo Subianto (Tan & Husada, 2024), and the arguably very risqué Chief Penguin for Ganjar Pranowo (which comes from a ‘porn-enthusiast’ label subtext) (Rahmawati, 2024), it affects the way the candidates go through trial and error for their public personality. Other than that, voters have ample time to sample the ideas and programs from candidates in face-to-face live-streamed events such as the pioneering Desak Anies, along with the Demokreasi with Ganjar Pranowo and even Tabrak Prof for VP-candidate Mahfud MD. These personalities and events are seemingly not planned by respective campaign teams, but formed by the initiatives of surrounding circumstances and supporters. The fact that interactions are easily recorded in the internet also means that each candidates’ teams can pivot their strategies accordingly over a period of time, which many did in trying to gain at the margins. It ended with all the candidates being invested in their organically-made meme-persona.
Conclusions
Observers have suspected that official presidential debates might not affect much when it comes to political choices (Fernandes, 2024), and that might also extend to other occasions where candidates show off their rhetorical prowess. That might very well be the case in Indonesia’s latest elections. But the sheer number of enthusiasm and interaction in the election ecosystem suggest that, perhaps future elections will be filled with more genuine collaborative formulation between campaign teams and candidates. It is perhaps wise for government agencies and political parties to focus on meaningful engagement rather than relying on jargons, not only to cater to the more engaged demography, but also to stimulate meaningful development in Indonesian democracy.
Quoting Rakesh Rajani again, “The Gutenberg press, the ballot box, and the Twitter feed are wonderful inventions to propel democratic impulse. But we fetishize them at our peril. The truly revolutionary aspect of human revolutions is the hard work of forging collective belief and action.” Post-2024 politics would be a good time to forge those beliefs and actions into concrete policies that would enrich the discussions in the next election cycle – in the preparation, campaign or debate.
Sources:
Yuniarto, T., 2024. Pemilihan Umum 2024 dalam Angka. [Online].
We Are Social & Meltwater, 2024. Digital 2024 Indonesia, s.l.: We Are Social; Meltwater.
Muhamad, N., 2024. Mayoritas Anak Muda Indonesia Gunakan Internet untuk Media Sosial , s.l.: Databoks Katadata.
APJII, 2024. APJII Jumlah Pengguna Internet Indonesia Tembus 221 Juta Orang, s.l.: s.n.
Carothers, T., 2015. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. [Online] Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/2015/06/03/why-technology-hasn-t-delivered-more-democracy-pub-60305 [Accessed 2024].
Ramadhan, M. S., 2024. Medcom.id. [Online] Available at: https://www.medcom.id/nasional/peristiwa/wkBBYPxk-fans-beri-nama-korea-anies-baswedan-park-ahn-nice-langsung-trending-x [Accessed 2024].
Tan, Y. & Husada, T., 2024. Prabowo Subianto: Indonesia’s ‘cuddly grandpa’ with a bloody past. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68028295
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