Introduction

Unlike in previous presidential elections, the 2019 election saw the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, announcing full support for the incumbent, Joko Widodo (Jokowi). NU has about 50 million members and sympathizers, and its former rois ‘am (supreme leader), Ma’ruf Amin, was Jokowi's running mate. As indicated by some analysts, the reasons for NU to do cancut tali wondo (be actively and fully involved) (al Amin 2019, p. 7) in the election are varied. According to the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), NU's involvement was “partly transactional, but its opposition to the Islamists behind Prabowo was deeply ideological” (IPAC 2019). In his ethnographic study of selected pesantrens (traditional Islamic boarding schools) in Java, Edward Aspinall too found that the narratives adopted by some of the kiais (leaders/caretakers of pesantrens) to support Jokowi–Ma’ruf were mostly ideological, most notably in wanting to counteract radical Islam, Salafism, Wahhabism and the Hizbut Tahrir (HTI), the pan-Islamist movement for the revival of the caliphate (Aspinall 2019). Although some subscribed to transactional narratives, the more important argument for these local kiais was ideological. The transactional narratives, which became common narratives within the circle of NU leaders and the elite of the NU-affiliated party, Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (National Awakening Party or PKB, for short), revolved around the number of seats the party's representatives could secure in the cabinet and the upgraded status of NU from being the main beneficiary of government aid to becoming ashabul qoror (decision makers) in government.

To what extent did NU's support contribute to Jokowi's triumph? This is an important question since support for the winning candidate (in this case, Jokowi) becomes a bargaining chip to secure positions in the cabinet or a greater share of the pie in Jokowi's administration. Immediately after the announcement of Jokowi's triumph, some politicians were making claims and counter-claims as to who and which party had played the most critical role in Jokowi's victory. Fachrudin, an NU activist and academic, emphasized the significance of NU's role by outlining the swing in several big pesantrens in East Java (Fachrudin 2019a, 2019b). For Shofia and Pepinsky, Ma’ruf Amin “was a crucial factor in Jokowi's victory” but he “did not create an advantage for Jokowi in NU-dominant districts”.

Introduction

Women have long been left out of the policy debate and politics in Indonesia. At the beginning of the New Order era (1966-98), politically active women were accused of being members of Gerwani, an organization affiliated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The New Order military government depicted Gerwani members as evil and immoral; as a consequence, women were afraid of voicing their opinions publicly and coming across as outspoken (Wieringa 2002). The Suharto government pursued other ways to depoliticize women and steer them towards being active in state-approved movements that reinforced the important roles played by obedient mothers and wives in the country's development (Suryakusuma 2011). In its later years, however, the New Order government became more tolerant of women's activism, which grew rapidly and became more vibrant after Reformasi. Nevertheless, the progressive women's movement grappled with reaching out to the broader grassroots level because it was mainly run by small, issue-specific, and donor-dependent organizations without mass bases (Rinaldo 2019).

The picture seems to have shifted with the 2019 election. More women actively participated in politics and defended their preferred presidential candidates at the grassroots level. Those who supported the presidential candidacy of Prabowo Subianto and his running mate, Sandiaga Uno, (popularly known as the Prabowo-Sandi team) referred to themselves as emak-emak (mothers), projecting themselves as strong-willed mothers in fighting for whatever they think is right. They claimed to represent struggling women from the middle-to-low socio-economic class, who care primarily about economic stability and having more job opportunities for their children. On the other side, those supporting the team of Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Ma’ruf Amin called their women supporters ibu bangsa (mothers of the nation), referring to the term used in the 1935 conference of the International Council of Women (ICW), which has a more inclusive and uplifting meaning compared to emak-emak (Khalika 2018). These women supporters were mainly led by those from the middle-upper class who fear growing intolerance in Indonesia.

We have also seen greater diversity among women candidates in the legislative elections. They came from varied backgrounds such as former activists, entrepreneurs or even relatives of party bigwigs who paved the way for them to participate in the election.

Introduction

Analysts and pundits mostly agree that Indonesia's 2019 general election was largely determined by the use of identity politics (Pepinsky 2019; Slater and Tudor 2019). Identities, especially religious and ethnic identities, were the most effective tool to mobilize voters. The results of the presidential election strongly indicate this tendency. Voters with moderate Islamic views and religious minorities leaned towards voting for President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and his running mate, Ma’ruf Amin; those with more conservative Islamic leanings were inclined to cast their vote for the Prabowo Subianto–Sandiaga Uno team.

Other than religion, ethnic identity may also have influenced the outcome of the election. Regions with sizeable numbers of Javanese voters, the largest ethnic group in Indonesia, tended to vote for Jokowi–Ma’ruf while non-Javanese regions with Muslim majorities voted for Prabowo–Sandiaga.

This chapter aims to examine the assertion that identity politics was the determining factor in the 2019 election. The election was a complicated affair as there were, in fact, five races held simultaneously and there was a possibility that one election might affect the other. Many asserted that the presidential election may entail a “down-ballot effect” onto the other elections. However, as we will find later in this chapter, the presidential election was of a completely different order compared with the elections for the national parliament (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat or DPR, for short). Likewise, the elections at the provincial and district/municipality levels were of an altogether different nature.

While identity politics was at play in the presidential election, the other elections (for the Regional Representative Council or DPD, for short, and legislatures at various local levels) were shaped more by clientelism and patronage, mostly in the form of “contingent exchange” (Aspinall and Berenschot 2019; Hicken 2011). In these kinds of dynamics, the various electorates were guided to cast their votes by the material benefits they expected to enjoy. These could have been in the form of projects for their communities or neighbourhoods or just plain cash. Even if ideology was at play, the level of ideological attachment was different at each election.

Based on field research in South Sumatra and Lampung, both provinces in Sumatra Island, this chapter will elaborate when and how identity politics was used and when and how clientelism and patronage were at work during the elections.

Introduction

Indonesia's 2019 elections culminated in protests and riots on 21–23 May 2021, as partisans of the Prabowo Subianto–Sandiago Uno opposition coalition rejected the results of the presidential election, alleging electoral fraud by incumbent Joko Widodo (Jokowi). During the unrest, eight people were killed in clashes with police and hundreds more were injured. The violence, perhaps the first of its kind in the capital since 1998, was followed by the ritual search for the dalang (puppetmaster) of the riots. But this search obscured the fact that a wealth of open source data indicated that many of those involved in the street violence had acted spontaneously, motivated by misleading or false information. In particular, militant oppositionists were motivated by a concatenation of fake news reports claiming the election had been stolen, which culminated in the belief that their communities were under attack.

The riots in Indonesia in 2019 may mark the first time in a democracy that social media-driven misinformation and disinformation led to violent unrest after a national election. The case of Indonesia serves as a warning to democracies with electoral systems that are vulnerable owing to weakened media institutions, high social media penetration and populist politics.

Although the violence in 2019 was tightly contained by the authorities and limited to clashes between police and opposition activists in Central Jakarta, the unrest was correlated with a large spike in online fake news and conspiracy theories targeting China and the ethnic Chinese community. The recent origins of anti-Chinese disinformation in Indonesia can be traced to the 2014 election, when popular outsider Jokowi was smeared in unofficial “black campaign” material as the son of ethnic Chinese communists (Tyson and Purnomo 2017). This birther-style conspiracy theory continues to circulate in Islamist circles and was at the centre of a 2016 propaganda screed widely circulated online, Jokowi Undercover (Bambang Tri 2016). Such racist narratives build on a history of anti-Chinese sentiment in Indonesia (Purdey 2006). Increasingly, however, contemporary disinformation narratives draw less on history and more on geopolitics, reflecting growing anxiety over the rapid rise of China as a major power in Southeast Asia. China's rising hegemony is now the meta-narrative within which anti-Chinese disinformation is embedded in Indonesia.

Introduction

The challenges posed by the 2019 election were not only important in terms of implementing a new election mechanism, namely concurrent elections, but also in supporting the establishment of better democracy. Democracy itself has today created opportunities for people, political parties and non-governmental organizations to play greater roles in the decision-making process. It also has given the people greater freedom of expression, including the freedom to oppose the government. People in general have more political options as no party has absolute power any longer. Democracy has also allowed for regular, peaceful change of leadership for more than twenty years now.

On the other hand, democracy in Indonesia is not advanced yet. Some observers view Indonesian politics as still being under the control of oligarchs (Robison and Hadiz 2004; Winters 2014). The rule of law in general is still weak as is genuine participation, creating an artificial form of political representation. Corruption and money politics, mainly related to electoral contestation, still occur at both national and local levels (Aspinall and Berenschot 2019; Muhtadi 2019; Aspinall and Sukmajati 2015; Amrullah 2009; Choi 2007) and detract from the fairness and equality that the election system is supposed to deliver. There is a tendency to create cartels rather than government with accountability (Ambardi 2009). In recent years, the authorities have shown a streak of authoritarianism by arbitrarily arresting anyone who opposed or criticized the government (Power 2018). Moreover, Indonesian political contestation is coloured by primordial issues, identity politics and populism, rather than policy programmes. Those conditions indicate that the flaws of Indonesia democracy—the tendency towards oligarchism—still hold, as pointed out by several scholars (Slater 2004; Davidson 2009; Slater and Simmons 2012; Bunte and Ufen 2009; Aspinall and Mietzner 2010; Ford and Pepinsky 2014). Indonesian democracy has been rated mediocre or even low by various national and domestic observers, including Asian Democracy Index (4.9/10), Economist Intelligence Unit (6.39/10) and Freedom House (Partly Free).

This chapter will discuss the quality of the 2019 election and its relation to Indonesian democracy, which is believed to be experiencing potential stagnation. Specifically, the chapter will explore questions such as: how the quality of Indonesia's political conditions is connected to the quality of elections, what the causes of democratic stagnation are, and what should be done to overcome stagnation.

“Joining Pemuda Pancasila has been great for business. I now have over 100 staff, an expanding portfolio and owe a lot of it to them.” Heru pauses to sip his whisky on the rocks. “This ice is supplied by Pemuda Pancasila, best quality in Jakarta.” He was sitting in an upmarket bar in a five-star Jakarta hotel owned by a mid-ranking member of the paramilitary organization Pemuda Pancasila. The venue and its clientele, consisting largely of fashionable upper middle-class millennials, is seemingly far removed from the street-level thuggery or seedy “nightlife” with which many still associate the paramilitary group and others like it. In his late-twenties and an ethnic Chinese, Heru constitutes the changing face of Pemuda Pancasila, part of a younger generation of an old organization still synonymous for many with political gangsterism and the violent excesses of the New Order regime.

Heru's motivations for membership, situated within the context of what many have argued is Indonesia's deep political polarization around sectarian identity, are both self-servingly pragmatic and “idealistic”. The group's extensive networks, influence and muscle have been an eminently practical means for gaining strategic business advantage in the push and shove of Jakarta's hyper-competitive financial services market. Affiliation with the group has also, he claims, afforded protection at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment has regained political traction. This protection is corporeal but also “ideological”, to the extent that Pemuda Pancasila has long represented itself as a frontline defender of the state ideology of Pancasila from an array of real and imaginary threats, the most historically salient of which has been “communism”. It has been reconfigured in current times as defenders of a “Pancasilaprescribed notion of communal pluralism” and “moderation” in the face of Islamist radicalism and politicized “intolerance”. The irony of seeking protection from an organization with a well-documented history of the targeted persecution of ethnic Chinese was not lost on Heru. “I’ve seen the movie Act of Killing, but you know times have changed. The lines of division and what is at stake are different from the old days.”

For Heru and many others, the huge Islamist mobilizations in 2016–17, pivotal in the electoral defeat and conviction for blasphemy of Jakarta's former governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (“Ahok”), constituted something of a turning point moment.

Introduction

On 21 May 2019, the Indonesian General Elections Commission announced the long-awaited electoral results: the incumbent President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and his running mate, the Islamic scholar Ma’ruf Amin, had won, garnering 55.50 per cent of the total votes, against former general Prabowo Subianto and his vice-presidential candidate, Sandiaga Uno, who obtained 44.50 per cent. The incumbent was backed by a coalition of nationalist and Islamic parties led by the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle or PDI-P, for short) whereas Prabowo was endorsed by his own party, Gerindra, and the Islamist-oriented Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (Prosperous Justice Party or PKS, for short). This was the second presidential contest for Jokowi and Prabowo as they were also contenders in the 2014 election.

The election campaign was also one of the most divisive in Indonesia's electoral history. Most notably, it showcased the culmination of Indonesia's religious–pluralist binary electoral politics, with Prabowo's camp relying on the mobilization of Islamist sentiments and Jokowi's camp generally seen as championing pluralism despite having a vice-presidential candidate who is considered by many as religiously conservative. The key term here is electoral politics as religious polarization is aggravated mainly during elections.

Despite the comfortable margin of 11 per cent that he had achieved, Jokowi won in fewer provinces than he did in 2014. Notably, he lost in six of the ten provinces in Sumatra, which, with its 37.8 million voters, is the island with the second largest number of voters after Java. Like the rest of the Indonesian archipelago, Sumatra is predominantly Muslim (87 per cent), while Christians make up 10.7 per cent of the population, and Buddhists (1.4 per cent), Hindus (0.4 per cent) and Confucians (0.1 per cent) are present in smaller numbers. Yet, the island is ethnically heterogeneous, with Javanese (30.2 per cent), Batak (14.4 per cent), Malay (13.2 per cent) and Minang (11.4 per cent) forming the main ethnicities, while smaller groups include the Chinese (1.5 per cent).

Of Indonesia's thirty-four provinces, none has more strongly shown religious binarism than North Sumatra, one of the most religiously and ethnically heterogeneous provinces in the archipelago. Here, Jokowi won by a negligible margin of 4 per cent.

INTRODUCTION

Discussions on halal are not newly invented in the context of Indonesia only since the formalization of the halal issue in the 1990s. The matter has been recognized since the coming of Islam to the archipelago. As with other religions such as Judaism, Islam also has regulations on the lawfulness and the unlawfulness of consuming and producing goods, which are classified as halal (permissible) and haram (impermissible or forbidden). In addition, halal and haram are considered important distinctions in Islam. Because halal and haram have doctrinal positions in Islam, all Muslims are committed to upholding that difference in their daily life. Other than taking part in mandatory prayers, Muslims are regulated in what is permissible and impermissible in eating, drinking and other behaviours. Those who do not obey are categorized as sinful Muslims. Propagators of this doctrine, such as the Council of Indonesian Ulama (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, or MUI), have proposed that what constitutes halalness and haramness for Muslims should be made transparent. They consider access to information on halal and haram on the labels of products to be a right for Indonesian Muslims. Based on this, they have long lobbied for the formalization of halalness in the legal and public sphere of Indonesia.

Jokowi's push for halal formalization is understandable, given the economic and market benefits that Indonesia would potentially gain. His government has however not given sufficient consideration to the fact that halal formalization can generate injustices and discrimination against non-Muslims. State Law No. 33/2014 on Halal Product Assurance hints that Indonesia has agreed to use sharia as part of the national law, and this phenomenon can be perceived as Indonesian partiality to that tradition. In this regard, marginalization and subordination of non-Muslims could result. In short, the Jokowi government seems to have only considered the political-economic interests rather than the national interests of Indonesia. The formalization of halal can cause social segregation and polarization for those Indonesians who hold different faiths and consumption patterns.

In classical fiqh, halal is often understood as permission to consume goods mostly associated with food and drinks. In the modern era, the halal status is defined to extend to other sectors such as cosmetics, hotels, tourism and fashion. The expansion of the definition of halal also means the expansion of religion in determining consumption patterns in different spheres of life.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• • Southeast Asian autocracies of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have politicized vague definitions of “fake news” to justify diverse tactics of digital repression.

• • In these countries, what constitutes falseness in “fake news” has hardly been clearly articulated. The governments instead focus on the grave threats the dissemination of “fake news” could pose to national security, public disorder, or national prestige.

• • As the governments are vested with the power to bend the labelling of “fake news” to their will, they can criminalize those accused of circulating such information to safeguard public interests.

• • There are at least four methods by which the governments have tightened the screws on cyberspace under the banner of curbing “fake news”: (i) prosecute Internet users, journalists and dissidents in particular; (ii) pressure Internet Service Providers and social media platforms to block and remove content; (iii) expand and deepen social media monitoring; and (iv) shut down the Internet altogether.

• • All four countries have used “fake news” allegations to penalize critics. Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam are inclined to use such allegations to strong-arm tech companies into removing content at the behest of the governments. Thailand and Vietnam tend to exploit such allegations to beef up online surveillance. Myanmar is the only country that turns to Internet shutdowns.

• • The interplay between the methods of digital repression that exploit the pretext of cracking down on “fake news” and the manipulation of online discourse through the deployment of cyber troops would merit further research and in-depth examination.

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

INTRODUCTION

In mainland Southeast Asia, the governments of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have been using the pretext of curbing “fake news” to control digital space. The phenomenon of “fake news” gained international traction in light of, among other things, the 2016 US elections and Brexit, in which false online information contributed to the rise of hate speech and extremism, political divides and the eroding of democracy. While these concerns are legitimate and have led to the implementation of various regulatory measures and content moderation policies, political leaders, especially autocratic ones, have found it useful to make policy responses to “fake news” as a means to stifle critics. This weaponizing of “fake news” allegations has served to tighten the regimes’ grip on information to the detriment of a healthy information environment.

In this article, we show how the regimes in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have used vague definitions of “fake news” to justify diverse practices to suppress digital space. We focus on these four countries because their regime types are characteristically autocratic and have a propensity to intensify digital repression. According to the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem), Cambodia is an electoral autocracy, while Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam are identified as closed autocracies. Civil liberties in these four countries are severely constricted, all ranked by Freedom House as “not free”. As we shall see, these autocracies have employed diverse methods to narrow digital space. We highlight the governments’ increasing use of a “fake news” label to foster four main repressive tactics: legal persecution of users and platforms, content restriction, surveillance, and Internet shutdowns. Across the four autocracies studied, we observed at least four methods in which governments rely on the claim to curtail “fake news” to justify digital repression. First, in all four cases, the government uses the “fake news” claim to charge in court Internet users who have been critics of the regimes. Second, at least in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, the “fake news” threat provides a pretext for compelling Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and social media platforms to block and take down content unfavourable to these governments.

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• • The government of Indonesia in the second term of the Jokowi presidency has fully endorsed the concept of halal to become not only a sharia-driven state law but also an incentive for the advancement of the national economy and market. In addition, Jokowi wants Indonesia to become the centre of the global halal industry.

• • In the history of Indonesian Islam, although the issue of halalness, being an unseparated part of Islamic doctrine, is not new, it had never been the role of the state to formalize it into state law prior to the legislation of State Law No. 33/2014 on Halal Product Assurance.

• • From the 1990s to 2014, halal matters including halal certification had been unofficially handled by the Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI). Then, the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) proposed that halal certification be officially handled by the government of Indonesia, not by Muslim organizations. The legislation of State Law No. 33/2014 reflects contestation between MUI and MORA regarding which institution should serve as the authority in certifying halal products.

• • Promoting and advancing the halal project of Indonesia are related not only to commodification but also to theology. The choice of the Islamic method for determining halal can become a barrier to improving inclusive economic and market performance. The halal system in Indonesia follows the Shafi’i school of thought in Islamic law, which is very strict in defining the halalness of relevant products. However, a more flexible method of ijtihad (Islamic legal reasoning), which can accommodate the development of the halal market, is needed.

• • Despite claims that the formalization of halalness through State Law No. 33/2014 accommodates universal and inclusive values, some religious minority groups worry that the law will shore up the shariatization agenda of the Muslim majority and marginalize religious minorities in terms of their lifestyle preferences.

• • The legislation of State Law No. 33/2014 has allowed shariatization to be not merely an issue associated with political Islam, but one that through commodification is grounded in the everyday lives of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.