The runoff election between the incumbent, Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Vice Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat , and their rivals, Anies Baswedan and his running mate Sandiaga Uno, is coming up on April 19, just a little over two weeks away. The most recent polls have shown that Anies-Sandi have a small but decisive lead (results of a poll from Survei Energy Indonesia released yesterday had the challengers at 49.2% compared to Ahok-Djarot’s 42.2%).
Despite that strong lead, there were rumors that Anies was “traumatized” by his own performance at a televised debate between himself and Ahok one week ago on the Metro TV program “Mata Najwa”, a debate in which many said he failed to articulate his only policy proposals (such as his controversial 0% down payment housing scheme) and instead focused only on attacking his opponent.
Some thought he would get the chance to redeem himself last night during the “Rosi di Kompas TV” program, which the network was advertising as a debate between both candidate pairs.
Bentar lagi mulai nih Debat Cagub Cawagub pic.twitter.com/YwxYFIWORw
— Joko Anwar (@jokoanwar) April 2, 2017
However, when the show began at 7pm, the host, Rosiana Silalahi, told the audience that the debate would not take place as neither Anies nor Sandi had shown up.
Oh, paslon no. 3 nggak dateng. 🙁 Kenapa ya kira-kira? Lempar handuk?
— Joko Anwar (@jokoanwar) April 2, 2017
“Oh, candidate pair #3 (Anies-Sandi) didn’t come. Why is that? Throwing in the towel?”
“This event is not going to go according to plan. This afternoon we got confirmation that candidates number three (Anies-Sandi) would not attend,” Rosiana said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQPFGwBwQ2Y
So instead of a debate, the program turned into a regular talk show showcase for the incumbent pair, including interviews with their spouses (who also came up on stage) and improvised bits such as showing off their flip bottle skills for the audience.
https://youtu.be/h-vtGXxoknQ
Unsurprisingly, once word that Anies and Sandi had decided not to attend the event, the hashtag #AniesTakutDebat (Anies is afraid to debate) started trending on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/keysa_zahra/status/848458124449071104
https://twitter.com/ariamahendra74/status/848441765409431552
#AniesTakutDebat a donkey will not fall twice on the same hole, and @aniesbaswedan is that donkey! Gak berani kalah debat lagi… True?
— Benedictus KinLy (@benedictusaping) April 2, 2017
https://twitter.com/GunRomli/status/848428491188060163
“Maybe Anies is busy making al-Maidah soap finally #AniesTakutDebat on KompasTV Anies is playing soap opera”
Of course, the Anies-Sandi campaign gave a very different explanation for why they did not come to the debate. In a press release, the campaign’s media team deputy head Naufal Firman Yursak said that they had never confirmed that the rival candidate pair had agreed to the debate and accused the show of “not having any ethics” by continuing to promote the debate anyways.
However, Kompas reported that Sandi had confirmed that he would be participating in that night’s debate, at least against his counterpart Djarot, at 4:30 pm that afternoon, less than three hours before it was scheduled to begin.
The press release from the campaign also said that they had wanted to change the format of the show from a “divisive” debate between the candidates and into more of a dialogue about their ideas. They also wanted the show to pick a “neutral audience” based on their criteria, all conditions they say the program did not want to accommodate.
Whatever the true reason behind Anies-Sandi choosing not participate in this debate, there is no way that they can avoid the upcoming official runoff election debate being organized by the Election Commission (KPU). That’s where we’ll really get to see if Anies is ready to debate Ahok again or not.
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