Erwida Maulia, Ezra Sihite & Robertus Wardi – "Big threat to the Islamic people and the nation. Alert.....!! Jokowi's lies of his Muslim identity were revealed after he kept refusing to lead the evening and night prayers. More of the lies were revealed after he wrongly performed the wudu [ablutions before prayers]."
So reads one of the many messages circulating on social media ahead of the July 9 presidential election.
Rizki Chrisnadia, 31, confirmed that her Facebook newsfeed had recently been flooded with such politically charged memes and messages, many of which were inflammatory in nature.
Supporters of both presidential hopefuls Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi, and Prabowo Subianto have started to engage in a heated war of words, although, Rizki noted, most comments seem to target Joko, the popular Jakarta governor, accusing him of being a non-Muslim on a mission to lead the Indonesian people away from their Islamic faith.
"I saw a post claiming Jokowi's parents were of Chinese descent. After some time, the same person who wrote the first message insisted Jokowi's parents were rich Javanese and that he had lied about having been born into a poor family," Rizki said.
"There's even a post linking [Joko's presidential bid] to a Jewish conspiracy. That's ridiculous. How could [people] believe such things?"
Though the Bogor resident admitted she wasn't a fan of the businessman-turned-politician, placing herself in the large group consisting of the country's undecided voters, Rizki said she had a low opinion of underhanded tactics.
"But such smear campaign messages, obviously posted without checking and rechecking the facts first, makes me lose my respect for Prabowo's supporters. And then I thought, perhaps I should just vote for Jokowi out of spite," she said.
Provocative comments aimed at discrediting one presidential ticket to elevate the other have been making the rounds through text messages and social media platforms like Facebook, Path and Twitter, popping up daily on the screens of Indonesia's 278 million mobile subscribers.
Though many of these messages lack a credible source, supporters tend to forward or repost them without thinking twice about the validity of the claims.
While Joko is a frequent target of religion-based smears – he has even been linked to a fictitious mega project that aims to turn Indonesia into a Christian state – Prabowo has also been unfairly targeted.
Anti-Prabowo messages focus on the former Army general's allegedly short fuse and violent temper – he is said to frequently threaten people with guns or beat them during a fit of rage. Then there are the unshakable connections to past human rights abuses, including the kidnapping of democracy activists in 1998.
Prabowo is also rumored to have dual nationality, Indonesian and Jordan, which would render him ineligible to run for the presidency, as election regulations strictly forbid candidates who have dual citizenship.
"It [the rumor] is [part of] a smear campaign," Hatta Rajasa, Prabowo's running mate, said last week in an effort to put the citizenship issue to rest.
"Islam prohibits and discourages smear campaigns. I personally can't abide such tactics. Why can't we just have a positive election?" added Hatta, who is also chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN), one of the three Islamic parties in the coalition led by Prabowo's Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).
Joko's running mate, Jusuf Kalla, has also come to Joko's rescue by jokingly suggesting a Koran recital contest between the presidential hopefuls – a bid to squash rumors that Joko is not a Muslim.
Kalla, who chairs the Indonesian Mosque Council (DMI), went as far as to propose that the so-called piety competition be held in Aceh, the only province that implements Islamic shariah law.
Other attempts at character assassination against Joko include insinuations of him being a puppet for Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri's allegedly power-driven agenda; and his alleged involvement in a recent TransJakarta bus procurement markup scandal.
Meanwhile, Prabowo's camp have had to deal with widespread gossip about the Gerindra founder's troubled family life and heavy financial debts.
Political observer Djayadi Hanan directs the blame at supporters of both candidates, saying they are responsible for the explosion of slanderous propaganda, and accusing them of increasingly turning to malicious campaigns out of desperation.
"The candidates themselves are usually committed to avoiding such campaign strategies. But it's impossible to fully control their supporters," said Djayadi, the research director at Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting.
Adji Alfaraby, a researcher with the Indonesia Survey Institute (LSI), emphasized the difference between a smear campaign and negative campaign, explaining that while the former stems from ambiguous sources, the latter is often based on truth, but tends to focus on the negative aspects of a candidate.
Citing the results of an LSI survey conducted last month, Adji said a larger portion of the country's constituents believed in the slanderous claims against Prabowo – up to 70 percent of respondents – than those targeting Joko. Results also showed that such underhanded campaigns affected the candidates' respective electability as a large number of potential voters lacked a clear understanding of the issues being raised.
The latest LSI study placed Joko-Kalla in the lead with the support of 35 percent of the respondents polled, although the Prabowo-Hatta ticket was not far behind at around 23 percent.
"Still, both teams have a chance to win, because 42 percent of voters are undecided," Adji said, adding that it was still possible for the candidates' respective teams to spin the issues in their favor and in doing so discredit the opponent.
A similar opinion came from Syarif Hidayatullah University's political analyst Pangi Syarwi Chaniago, who questioned: "Are the rival politicians responsible for these smear campaigns? Or are they self-inflicted to paint the candidate as a victim, and thus win sympathy votes?
"The latter can effectively sway voters' emotions," Pangi added. Either way, if they want to survive smear campaigns, the choice is in the candidates' own hands, Adji said.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/stakes-high-get-campaign-turns-dirty/