Indonesia 2024 election: can Anies Baswedan upset the odds and convince voters he is a moderate?

Thomas Lembong, an adviser to Anies’ campaign, has dismissed the public polls as inaccurate. “The externally published surveys are practically useless as guides because they are shaped for propaganda.

“Virtually all the internal polls [commissioned by all the competing teams] that are not available to the public consistently show a neck-to-neck race among the three candidates,” Lembong said.

But political analysts also agreed with the public poll results, saying the Anies and Muhaimin pairing would struggle to win the election.

Prabowo and Ganjar have attracted Widodo’s tacit support at different times though the president appears now to be firmly leaning towards Prabowo. On the other hand, Anies’ candidacy is not favoured by Widodo, according to several government insiders.

This could pose a problem for Anies with signs that the administration has been looking for ways to curtail his campaign, according to analysts.

“The attorney general warned publicly in August that political forces are manipulating legal institutions for political purposes and indeed several cases have targeted Anies, Muhaimin and parties supporting their ticket,” said Kevin O’Rourke, chief of the political risk consultancy Reformasi Information Services.

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“The level of public satisfaction with President Jokowi’s performance is very high [above 75 per cent]. Because Anies takes the opposite position to Jokowi [on various issues], the chance of [Anies] gaining public support is a maximum of only 25 per cent,” Bakry said.

Choosing Muhaimin as his running mate may have further damaged Anies’ chances, Bakry added, citing various poll data. “After Anies paired up with Muhaimin, his electability dropped. Muhaimin is a figure that is not liked by the public.”

However, Anies had chosen Muhaimin as he is hoping to ride on PKB’s strong appeal among the huge membership base of the Islamic organisation Nadhlatul Ulama (NU), Bakry said. As many as 40 million voters are believed to be NU members, many of whom live in East Java – Indonesia’s second most populous province – where support for Anies is weak.

“If this coalition succeeds, the partnership of PKB and PKS holds the tantalising promise of bridging PKB’s rural base with PKS’s urban base,” said Lembong, referring to the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a party that is supporting Anies’ candidacy.

Still, Anies will have his work cut out to convince most PKB supporters, based on the results of recent polls by the National Survey Institute (LSN). Just 15.1 per cent of PKB supporters favoured Anies after he declared his partnership with Muhaimin, with most of them backing the other two presidential candidates.

To complicate matters for Anies, Ganjar is also courting NU members, as shown by his choice of Security Minister Mahfud MD as his running mate, who has long-standing ties with various NU-linked organisations. The pair submitted their names to the election commission just hours after Anies and Muhaimin did so.

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Anies would be looking to rely on the moderate NU to project an image of religious tolerance after his controversial campaign during the 2017 election for Jakarta governorship, which he won. He was then widely accused of stirring up religious and racial hatred against the Chinese Christian incumbent Basuki Purnama.

To further bolster his Islamic credentials, Anies has secured the support of another Islamist political party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) in addition to PKB and PKS. But the move could also complicate the dynamics of his coalition based on three Islamic parties.

Whereas PKB is seen as representing Indonesia’s tradition of embracing moderate Islam, PKS holds a harder line on social and religious views. Several PKB officials have voiced unease about the coalition with PKS, which was previously rumoured to be considering abandoning Anies after he declared his intention to run with Muhaimin.

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On the campaign trail, Anies has given contradictory signals on his religious stance.

Anies and Muhaimin recently met with controversial cleric Rizieq Syihab, the former chairman of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI). During the 2017 election, FPI signalled support for Anies and played a key role in attacking Basuki. The party was banned by the Indonesian government in 2020 for promoting extremism.

Muhaimin pushed back against accusations that Anies has close associations with Islamic radicals, arguing that his running mate had promoted religious tolerance during his stint as Jakarta governor.

Observers are hopeful that Indonesia will not see a repeat of the divisive tactics used in the 2017 governorship race in next year’s presidential election. “Religious issues are not very effective when used [to appeal to voters] across Indonesia, which is very multicultural,” Bakry said.