Behind the fall of Ahok, Islamists are
minor players in a bigger game
Although the
fall of Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who lost the April
gubernatorial election and was subsequently jailed for blasphemy, has been laid
to the rising power of Islamic hardliners, it fits into a bigger
picture. It appears to be a long-standing feud between former military
strongman Prabowo Subianto and a secular faction of the military called the
‘red-and-white’ faction.
The Islamists were only able to topple the former governor, known
universally as Ahok, the candidate of the red-and-white faction, through
alliance with Prabowo. After losing the 2014 election to Joko Widodo, Prabowo
has resurrected his political career. Suharto era generals remain far more
powerful in Indonesian politics than Islamic hardliners.
Hardliners minor players
in long-standing feud
Feuding between the two military factions began in the Suharto era.
Retired generals of the red-and-white faction who serve as ministers in
Jokowi’s cabinet are Wiranto, Ryamizard Ryacudu and Luhut Panjaitan. Other
retired generals who retain influence are Hendropriyono and Sutiyoso, who are
both former heads of the national intelligence agency. Their enemy, Prabowo,
remains powerful through his party, Gerindra.
In the early post-Suharto period, the red-and- white military faction
was able to keep Islamic hardliners subdued. The best known Islamic hardliner today
is Riziek Shihab, who rose to prominence in the post-Suharto era as leader of
the Islamic Defenders Front (known by its Indonesian acronym, FPI). One of
Riziek’s earliest run-ins with the red-and-white military faction was in 2003,
when the government under then Intelligence Chief Hendropriyono and his ally
President Megawati had Riziek sentenced to seven months I prison for
inciting his supporters against the security forces.
While it was Riziek who brought Ahok to trial for blasphemy in
2017, he did it with clear support from Prabowo. Prior to Riziek’s Nov. 4, 2016
rally against Ahok, the FPI had only very narrow public support. Then Fadli
Zon, the Gerindra deputy chairman, announced that he would join the rally and
that Ahok should be brought to court. Riziek’s larger Dec. 2 rally was joined
by another Prabowo ally, retired General Kivlan Zein.
Another Prabowo ally, media tycoon Hary Tanoe, is said to be the top supporter
of Riziek’s FPI, through direct aid and by means of his TV stations. FPI
leaders’ praise for praise for Hary Tanoe, even though his
Chinese ethnicity and Christian religion were at odds with FPI’s use of
ethnicity and religion to topple Ahok, suggests they felt dependent on him.
By January 2017, Gerindra’s gubernatorial candidate Anies Baswedan was visiting FPI headquarters in a public show
of support for FPI. By early April 2017, Prabowo himself was joining in, criticising Ahok for “slandering other
groups”. As election results were being counted, Prabowo expressed gratitude to FPI leader Rizieq
for “saving Indonesia’s democracy.” It was the alliance with Prabowo that had
allowed FPI to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people.
Newcomers minor players
in long-standing feud
Many political newcomers were only able to advance their careers by
aligning with Prabowo or the political parties of the red-and-white faction.
This shows the power of Suharto era generals.
Jokowi needed a powerful political party to back
his presidential campaign in 2014. He chose PDIP, the leading party of the
red-and-white military faction. Having won the presidency, three of his
ministers are old generals from the red-and-white military faction: Ryacudu,
Luhut Panjaitan and Wiranto.
Ahok only became deputy governor of Jakarta in 2012 by joining
Prabowo’s Gerindra Party. In early September 2014, Ahok withdrew from Gerindra, citing
disappointment with the party’s support for a bill to end direct elections for
regional leaders. Within two weeks, Prabowo’s allies FPI launched a rally against Ahok, seeking to
block Ahok’s promotion from deputy governor to governor. To improve his
prospects in the 2017 gubernatorial election Ahok was, by July 2016, openly courting PDIP, the key
party of the red-and-white faction.
Anies had sided with PDIP’s coalition during Jokowi’s presidential
campaign in 2014 and was subsequently appointed as Education Minister. However,
he fell out of favor with Jokowi in July 2016. He was able to re-emerge
politically by switching allegiance to Prabowo. This required cozying up to
some of Prabowo’s more controversial allies, like FPI and Suharto era crony Aburizal Bakrie, but he couldn’t have
succeeded alone.
Younger police and military personnel are also being pressured to
choose sides. Jokowi’s chief of police, Tito Karnavian, has been dragged into
the feud. As political tensions rose following FPI’s mass rallies in November
2016, Karnavian was pushed to arrest two key
members of Prabowo’s alliance: retired general Kivlan Zein and FPI leader Habib Riziek. He will now be viewed by
Prabowo as allied to the red-and-white military faction.
Earlier this year, Kivlan claimed that Jokowi’s Armed Forces Chief
General Gatot Nurmantyo was secretly plotting with other military
officers to overthrow Jokowi. General Nurmantyo was forced to publicly deny these accusations. If the politically
ambitious Nurmantyo has not yet taken sides, he must soon do so. He is set to retire from the military in 2018 and if he
does not take sides in the feud by then, he will have no influence in the 2019
presidential election.
The real powers behind
the politics
In the democratic era, Indonesian politics could have evolved into
rivalry between left-wing and right-wing parties. Instead, it has evolved into
personal rivalries between Prabowo and other Suharto era generals. Jokowi,
Ahok, Baswedan, and Islamic hardliners remain heavily dependent on patronage
from Suharto era elites.
Prabowo knows that Islamic hardliners are still not as powerful as
Suharto era elites. In May, despite FPI having allied with him to bring down
Ahok, Prabowo declared that “radical Islam will never win
in Indonesia.” Surveys in June 2017 suggested that hardliners were not so
popular at the national level. According to one survey, only 17.2 percent of 1,350
respondents favor FPI ally Prabowo for the 2019 presidential election, while
53.7 percent support secular candidate Jokowi. According to another, not even one in 10 Indonesians is willing to replace
democracy with an Islamic caliphate.
Islamic hardliners may have made minor gains in Indonesian politics by
toppling Ahok. But far more influential in Indonesian politics today are
Suharto era generals and their Suharto era feud.
Terry Russell worked as a teacher and aid practitioner
in Indonesia for 15 years.
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