WITH the election less than a year away, the two leading candidates are Joko Widodo (Jokowi), who is seeking a second five-year term as president, and Lt-Gen (Rtd) Prabowo Subianto, leader of the Gerindra Party, who was his primary opponent during the 2014 presidential election.
However, given the shifting political allegiances among the 20 political parties that are contesting the general election and the presidential race, the emergence of other contenders cannot be ruled out.
A third likely candidate is Anies Baswedan, governor of Jakarta, who took office last year, after a controversial election in which he defeated Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok), the city’s previous governor, following month-long protests that led to Basuki being accused of blasphemy by Muslim groups.
On July 4, Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) campaign volunteers declared that Anies will run as a presidential candidate for their party. This is an indication that after aligning itself with Prabowo’s Gerindra for the past five years, PKS is ready to break the alliance and nominate its own presidential candidate.
PKS’ performance during the recently concluded simultaneous regional elections, in which candidates backed by the party won seven of 17 contested gubernatorial races, seems to have emboldened PKS cadres about its prospects in the 2019 general election.
The declaration triggered several frenzied meetings between officials from Gerindra and PKS. No firm agreement has been settled between the two parties. PKS still considers the possibility of nominating its own presidential candidate, with Anies as the party’s nominee and Ahmad Heryawan, the outgoing West Java governor, as its vice-presidential candidate.
Earlier this year, PKS held discussions with both the National Awakening Party (PKB, affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama or NU) and the National Mandate Party (PAN, affiliated with Muhammadiyah) on the possibility of forming and Islamist alliance consisting of the three parties. This idea could be revisited should PKS decide to end its alliance with Gerindra and nominate its own presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, President Jokowi is considering Tuan Guru Bajang (or TGB, whose real name is Muhammad Zainul Majdi) as his vice-presidential nominee. Like Jokowi, Majdi is considered as a successful local executive, having completed two consecutive terms as governor of West Nusa Tenggara and made the province an internationally renowned Islamic tourist destination.
In addition, Majdi is a well-regarded religious scholar, and holds degrees in Islamic theology from Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, considered by many Muslims as the most important Islamic higher education institution in the world.
As a preacher, he has a wide following in West Nusa Tenggara and in the outer islands such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi. By appointing Majdi as his vice-presidential nominee, Jokowi plans to split the support from the Jakarta protest participants (known collectively as Alumni 212 groups) with the hope that some of them would back his re-election bid, instead of throwing their support behind candidates like Prabowo, Anies, and retired General Gatot Nurmantyo, the former Indonesian Armed Forces commander-in-chief.
Jokowi is also seeking support from other religious leaders, mainly NU clerics, to boost his re-election chances. On July 10, 100 Islamic clerics who called themselves The Young Ulama Solidarity Group for Jokowi (Samawi), announced their support, declaring that as president, Jokowi is “a leader who pays attention to the welfare of religious groups, especially the Muslims”. The group is chaired by Aminuddin Ma’ruf, a former general chairman of the Indonesian Islamic University Students Association, which is affiliated with NU.
Other ulama groups are also preparing to declare their endorsement of Jokowi. Majdi is scheduling an international conference of Islamic clerics in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, inviting this month’s Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque, Ahmed el-Tayeb, as its keynote speaker.
Another ulama conference organised by Alumni 212 groups is also scheduled in Jakarta around the same time. The conference, endorsed by Rizieq Shihab, supreme leader of Islamic Defenders Front, is expected to endorse one of Jokowi’s opponents as presidential candidate. Supporters said this conference would be attended by up to 10,000 Islamic clerics, lending religious legitimacy to their efforts to unseat Jokowi.
Apart from these aspirants, we can expect other key players like former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Democrat Party to have an important role in the coming months, by either aligning itself with one of the leading presidential candidates or sponsoring its own candidate, most likely, Agus Yudhoyono, who is Susilo’s eldest son. The Jakarta Post reported on July 17, that Prabowo is seriously considering Agus to be his vice-presidential nominee.
The backroom negotiations and deals between political parties and presidential candidates are expected to continue up to Aug 10, when the list of presidential and vice-presidential nominees is finalised. This will be followed with an eight-month long campaign period that will end one week before election day (April 17, 2019).
The writer is a Research Fellow with the Indonesia Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. This is part of a series on Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election.