A few days ago, Sandiaga Uno, running mate to defeated presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, was criticized for not congratulating President Joko Widodo on his re-election win and saying that giving congratulations was "western culture" – before flip-flopping with a carefully worded message of congratulations to the president later that same day.
One sociologist interviewed by the media confirmed that, yes, saying congratulations was, in fact, a part of Indonesian culture and speculated that Sandiaga's reticence was actually because he didn't want to offend his and Prabowo's die-hard supporters.
While Sandiaga's cultural excuse may have been bogus, after watching this video, we think the sociologist was probably spot on about his other concerns...
The video above was taken yesterday evening at a meeting of the Prabowo-Sandi Supporter and Volunteer Coalition that took place at D Hotel in Jakarta. The event was supposed to be a "consolidation" meeting, to get the supporters of the failed candidates on the same page following last week's decision by the Constitutional Court to deny their campaign's election fraud lawsuit, the last legal recourse they had in fighting the outcome of the April 17 election.
The chaos reportedly broke out after one of the speakers read a statement, supposedly supplied by officials from the Prabowo-Sandi campaign, which said that they accepted the decision of the Constitutional Court and would not make any legal efforts to challenge the ruling,
"Realizing that, we, from the Prabowo-Sandi Supporter and Volunteer Coalition, accept the decision," the statement said.
The statement also offered some words of congratulations to President Joko Widodo and his running mate, Ma'ruf Amin, which was reportedly what really set off attendees, leading some to throw up their arms in Xs of rejection, scream they did not accept the statement, and even tear down the event's banner.
According to a report by Merdeka, there were even calls for attendees to not eat the provided food, with some saying it was a "trap" (perhaps in reference to conspiracy theories among some Prabowo supporters about efforts by Jokowi's campaign to poison them at protests).
Eventually, members of the police and military arrived on the scene and were able to calm down the attendees, who reportedly dispersed peacefully.
An official from the Prabowo campaign, Sodik Mujaid, told Detik that it was understandable that some of their supporters still had strong feelings and did not want to accept Jokowi's victory.
"It is very reasonable that there are still differences of opinion among Prabowo-Sandi supporters about things like the Constitutional Court's decision and about the coalition. We believe that, with time, supporters will understand more about our attitude and return to solidarity," Sodik said yesterday.
The Constitutional Court hearings on Prabowo's election fraud lawsuit was considered by many to be a huge embarrassment for his campaign, revealing how little actual evidence they had to support their accusations of massive and systemic electoral fraud. The judges dismissed the lawsuit as "legally groundless".
But we're guessing that, no matter what evidence is put before them, certain Prabowo supporters will never accept President Joko Widodo's victory. Some folks just don't know how to move on.