After much hustling and tussling ever since the campaign period began, we finally got to see all three candidate pairs running for governor and vice governor of Jakarta duke it out in an official televised debate on Friday evening.
Those who watched the highly anticipated debate (at the expense of their Friday night out) were treated to a discussion that got increasingly tense towards the end. After all was said and done, the question on most people’s minds is – who came out on top (besides debate moderator Ira Koesno, of course) and who bombed?
Obviously, the answer to that is quite subjective, with our predisposition towards the candidate pairs playing a part in shaping our opinion. So, rather than rely on us, here is what some political analysts and experts (who are not affiliated, at least publicly, with any of the candidates) had to say about how the candidates did during the debate:
“Poor on innovation, not innovative enough, innovative but utopic”
That is the damning analysis from Teguh Dartanto, head of Universitas Indonesia’s Poverty and Social Protection Research Group, for all three candidate pairs in order of their election ballot numbers (1: Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono-Sylviana Murni; 2: Basuki Tjahaja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat; 3: Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno).
“There were no new innovations or ideas that emerged [from the candidates] to solve Jakarta’s problems,” Teguh told BBC Indonesia.
Focus on empathy, not ideas
Political communications analyst Ramses Lalongkoe criticised Agus-Sylviana and Anies-Sandiaga for not coming up with programs and ideas good enough to supplant the existing ones created by incumbents Ahok-Djarot.
“The public actually really wanted there to be extraordinary ideas from Agus-Sylviana and Anies-Sandiaga for if they get elected. But instead we got [the two pairs] focusing on a psychological approach by appealing to the public’s emotions and their empathy,” he told BeritaSatu.
A three-way draw, almost
Political analyst Adi Prayitno said he was impressed by all three candidate-pairs, including Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, who he said exuded confidence despite this being his first ever political debate.
“Generally the debate ended in a draw, despite, on occasions, Anies dominating the debate,” he told Sindonews.
Agus’ much-maligned cash aid program
Candidates Agus and Sylviana defended their controversial direct cash aid for the poor program during the debate. Politics blog KanalPolitik criticized this idea, saying that Agus’ father, former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, used the same strategy for the 2009 presidential election as a form of “political manipulation”, ie. to increase his political popularity among lower class citizens.
Sandiaga Uno’s not-so-brilliant idea to reduce traffic jams
Like many people, we were scratching our heads when Sandiaga Uno came up with the idea to enforce a moratorium on luxury cars, namely those worth Rp 3 billion or more, in order to combat the never-ending traffic jam issue in the capital.
It was quite surprising, then, that he stuck to the idea and defended it in the debate. But, speaking to BBC Indonesia, transportation analyst Ellen Tangdukung said the idea would never work.
“It doesn’t solve the problem whatsoever, especially if we force them [upper class citizens] to take the TransJakarta bus. What must be changed is [the mindset of] the middle class. There’s no way rich people are going to take the mikrolet (minivans),” she said.
Ahok shooting for presidency?
One of the main talking points of the debate was when the candidates were asked if they would dedicate themselves to Jakarta for the next five years and not move on to other, bigger things, like Joko Widodo did when he left the governor position midway through his term for the presidency.
Political Communications expert Hendri Satrio said Ahok deserves criticism for being the only candidate unwilling to commit to an answer, instead letting his running mate Djarot field the question.
“Jakarta can’t be ditched twice (after Jokowi), can it?” Hendri told Okezone.
Netizens have their say
Moving away from expert analyses, social media analysts PoliticaWave measured the number of mentions each candidate pair received on Twitter during the debate. Ahok-Djarot came out on top with 23,441 mentions, followed by Anies-Sandiaga with 17,175 mentions and Agus-Sylviana with 4,112 mentions. As for performance, a poll conducted by PoliticaWave showed that netizens believe Anies-Sandiaga edged out a victory by getting 46% of netizens’ votes, with Ahok-Djarot trailing close behind with 44% of the votes and Agus-Sylviana scoring just 10% of the votes.
Who do you think did well, or not so well, in the first Jakarta gubernatorial debate?
