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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1. Research Background
Regional elections are a form to achieve power and authority in politics.
Regional elections also consider as an instrument to compete fairly between candidates by involving people participation, both in the stage of elections until the post-election process. The DKI Jakarta governor election was first held in 2007 and continued in 2012 and 2017. In different implementation, the DKI Jakarta gubernatorial election always has an interesting phenomenon to study.
One interesting phenomenon in the elections is the existence of independent candidate pairs. Political parties are not the only way to fight in the electoral political field in a democratic country.1 In Indonesia, the nomination of an independent path guaranteed by Article 39 of Law Number 8 of 2015 concerning Election. In terms of numbers, the participation rate of independent candidates has decreased from year to year by 33%.2 The decline in independent candidates caused by the severity of the minimum support requirements individual candidates must collect 6.5% up to 10% of the population.3 Based on data held by the General Election Commission (KPU), 80 out
1 Gun Gun Heriyanto, Komunikasi Politik:di Era Industri Citra (Jakarta: Laswell Visitama, 2010), p.89, http://opac.fidkom.uinjkt.ac.id//index.php?p=show_detail&id=3897, (accessed June 25, 2019).
2 Survei Skala Indonesia, “Jumlah Calon Petahana Pilkada 2015 dan Proporsi Menang-Kalah,” Survei Skala Indonesia, February 2, 2019, p.17, http://www.skalasurveiindonesia.com/calon-independen-dan-proporsi-menang-kalah/, (accessed June 20, 2019).
3 The Asia Foundation, “Elections in Indonesia, The Asia Foundation,” The Asia Foundation, November 30, 2014, p.22, https://asiafoundation.org/publication/elections-in-indonesia-2014/, (accessed June17 , 2019).
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of 250 candidate pairs did not take part in the 2015 elections because they could not meet the minimum support requirements.4
The DKI Jakarta governor election, which was held on February 15th 2017, was controversial. There were three candidates compete to get the position of Governor and Deputy Governor for the 2017-2022 period. The first candidate was Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and Sylviana Murni, the second one was the couple who still run as Governor and Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) and Djarot Saiful Hidayat, and the last one was the former Minister of Education and Culture in President Jokowi’s period, Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno. Here Ahok is a Chinese and Christian who did not have a supporting party, so he went through an independent path.
Teman Ahok is a voluntary organization created by a group of young people who aim to help and accompany Ahok in realizing New Jakarta. They focused on collecting KTP5 to support him as an independent candidate for the DKI Jakarta governor election.6 They ensure Ahok is only indebted to his supporters through mobilization, creating the image of Ahok himself, and having an extraordinary support team. Construction of political images and communication usually carried out by supporter team or political parties and the media (press), not from the volunteer organization such as Teman Ahok.
4 Erwin Deriyanto, “Tak Cukup Dukungan, Satu Pasangan Batal Maju dalam Pilkada Kota Baubau,”
Kompas.com, February 12, 2018, https://regional.kompas.com/read/2018/02/12/21471981/tak-cukup-dukungan-satu-pasangan-batal-maju-dalam-pilkada-kota-baubau, (accessed June 19, 2019).
5 National ID. They collected KTP for Jakarta based citizens.
6 Bagus Permadi, “Kontestasi Pilkada DKI Jakarta Tahun 2017: Studi tentan Jejaring Mobilisasi Politik Pencalonan Ahok-Djarot,” Jurnal Politik Muda, vol.6, no.1 (January 2017), p.9, http://journal.unair.ac.id/JPM@kontestasi-pilkada-dki-jakarta-tahun-2017:-studi-tentang-jejaring-mobilisasi-politik-pencalonan-ahok-djarot-article-11677-media-80-category-8.html, (accessed June 23, 2019).
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Teman Ahok started from a movement called the Lawan Begal7 APBD8 in the case of “Dana Siluman”9 in APBD of DKI Jakarta, which took place on March 1, 2015, on Jakarta Car Free Day10. At that time, Ahok conflicted with the Jakarta People’s Representative Council which launched the right of inquiry to overthrow himself who struggled for Lawan Begal Dana Siluman. Despite that, Jakarta’s citizen who sympathize his action joined his support and made it into a social-media mobilization.
The young people who started to understand Ahok needed support in a victorious effort.
He needs more concrete action from simple movements to ensure Ahok can complete its programs in building a “New Jakarta”.11
We cannot separate the existence of sympathetic organizations from the attention of social researchers. Meitzner mentioned that non-party supports as a means of citizens power in determining their leaders and support to the political machinery of the oligarchy. 12 By carrying out different political participation such as supporting campaign funds, promoting supported candidates, and maintaining political communication with voters, support organizations could become one element of achievement for supported political candidates.13 In reality, Teman Ahok does not rely only on the usual campaign action. Teman Ahok also relies on social-media mobilization action to achieve their goals. Besides doing a campaign on car-free day,
7 Fighting against fraud of APBD funds.
8 Local Income and Expense Budget.
9 Misuse of funds.
10 Car Free Day itself is a common activity in Indonesia where cars or any motor vehicles may not pass on a certain road on a certain time and use the road only for pedestrian.
11 Danny Prasetyo, “Persepsi Masyarakat DKI Jakarta Terhadap Figur dan Komunikasi Politik Basuki Tjahaya Purnama (Ahok),” Politika: Jurnal Ilmu Politik 5, no. 2 (February 2014), p.15, https://doi.org/10.14710/politika.5.2.2014.5-17, (accessed June 26, 2019).
12 Marcus Mietzner, “Indonesia's 2014 Elections: How Jokowi Won and Democracy Survived,” Journal of Democracy 25, no. 4 (Summer 2014), p. 125, https://muse.jhu.edu/, (accessed June 25, 2019).
13 Ahmad Suaedy, “The Role of Volunteers and Political Participation in the 2012 Jakarta Gubernatorial Election,” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 33, no. 1 (July 2014), p. 135.
doi:10.1177/186810341403300106, (accessed June20, 2019).
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Teman Ahok also conducts a series of other actions such as Teman Ahok fair, social media promotion, and always try to review their work project.
Based on relevant studies, the authors assume that not many studies discuss organizations that support independent candidates, especially about the social-media mobilization to support the independent candidates. Ahok’s and Teman Ahok existence to support Ahok in collecting 1 million IDs could raise a question, how can Teman Ahok can successfully collect 1 million IDs in a period of time?