The runoff election between incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and challenger Anies Baswedan is coming up in less than a month and, as predicted, there is a climate of religious intolerance fueled by those seeking to end Ahok’s political career. The worst example of this has been the banners that have gone up at some mosques across the city saying that they would deny funeral prayer rites to deceased supporters of the current governor, which actually happened at least one time.
Anies, to his credit, denounced those who would deny funeral prayers to their neighbors, regardless of their political affiliation, saying that it was dangerous to mix religion and politics.
But, despite his repeated denials of appealing to religious hardliners in an attempt to get more votes, many commenters have noted that his campaign tactics leave very little doubt as to what his real strategy for beating Ahok is.
Take, for instance, a campaign event held by the Anies’ campaign team yesterday in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta. Meant to be an example of Anies’ running mate Sandiaga Uno’s One Kecamatan One Centre of Entrepreneurship (OK OCE) job and business creation program, it was a workshop to teach local residents how to create soap, led by Anies’ wife Fery Farhati Ganis.
“OK OCE is a program that can empower citizens, that can make them independent. Because I know, Mas Anies wants to improve the welfare of the citizens of Jakarta through OK OCE, without reliance by the government,” Fery said at the event, as quoted by JPNN.
But this wasn’t just any old kind of soap they were making. The workshop specifically referred to it as “Al-Maidah Soap”.
Neither Fery nor any of the other event organizers was quoted by media as to why the reference to Al-Maidah was used for the soap workshop, but you might be able to guess.
As those of you familiar with the details of Ahok’s legal history already know, Al-Maidah 51 is the verse from the Quran that the governor mentioned during a speech in the Jakarta’s Pulau Seribu in September, eventually leading to his current blasphemy trial. Some (but definitely not all) interpret the verse to mean that Muslims may not vote for non-Muslim leaders.
References to Al-Maidah have been used in other political ways recently, such as Roti Al-Maidah bread (meant to be an alternative to Sari Roti bread, which had angered some Muslim conservatives who then called for a ban on it).
There’s also posters for a “Tamasya Al-Maidah” (Al-Maidah Sightseeing) program circulating online, which seems to have been organized by Islamic hardliner groups to persuade Muslims from outside of Jakarta to come to the capital on April 19, the day of the runoff election, in order to help “monitor” polling stations (police are warning people against following the program and aare adding extra security to the polls to prevent voter intimidation).
Anies has never flatly said whether he believes that interpretation of the verse is true or not, but he has attended several anti-Ahok rallies organized by Islamic hardliners, including one right before the first round of the election in which participants were asked to pledge that they would not vote for non-Muslim leaders.
When asked about the “Tamasya Al-Maidah” program last week, Anies simply said he had no comment.
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