Abandon Hope all ye Who Vote for Him
So it's crunch time. The nastiest man in Indonesian politics is running for the top job again via his Gerindra Party vehicle, which he established when he failed to secure the presidential nomination from the Golkar Party (Wiranto and Surya Paloh also established vehicles for the same reason).
But this vicious thug must be seething with rage, because the seemingly unstoppable Jokowi, governor of Jakarta, has been nominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP). That party's ineffective leader, Megawati, seems to have realised that she could not win the presidency, having failed twice before, and having been a useless vice-president. So all Prabowo's efforts to pretend to be a friend of the farmers - presumably he didn't mention the ranch and horses he owns - may have been for nothing, because Jokowi has a track record of actually doing things from the poor even when there isn't an election coming up.
So what does Prabowo do, apart from lose. He can't really hope for the vice-presidential nomination, because nationalist parties traditionally look for Islamist VP candidates to balance things out - which is probably why Jokowi paid a visit to the head office of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second largest Muslim organization.
This means Prabowo can either get rid of Jokowi, or get nasty. Getting rid of Jokowi may not be easy - if anything happens to him, Prabowo will be the number one suspect - and the other parties will make sure the people know it. So that leaves getting nasty. One possible avenue for the rabidly anti-Chinese Prabowo is to remind the people of Jakarta that they will get a ethnic Chinese governor if Jokowi wins the presidency and his deputy takes over. But that's only relevant to the people of Jakarta. So what else to do? Jokowi is Muslim and always has been, and he's ethnic Javanese, so no scope for nastiness there.
Prabowo must be hoping there are some skeletons in Jokowi's closet, such as attempting a coup d'etat, kidnapping and torturing student activists or instigating riots in the capital. Oops.
Posts
