Despite President Joko Widodo clearly winning last Wednesday’s election according to the quick count results (which continue to be backed up by the still ongoing real vote count), Prabowo Subianto is still claiming victory and supporters of the two candidates are still are still trading jabs — most notably on social media — with one post insulting Prabowo leading to a police report.
On Sunday, Reinwartia Trygina AKA Erin Taulany, wife of famed comedian and talk show host Andre Taulany, was reported to the Jakarta Metro Police for defamation against Prabowo over an Instagram story post.
“It’s true, a lawyer reported [Reinwartia] to the Jakarta Metro Police this morning at around 10am. The report was for online defamation,” Jakarta Metro Police Spokesperson Argo Yuwono told CNN Indonesia yesterday.
The lawyer was identified by the media as Muhammad Firdaus Oiwobo, though it’s not clear whether or not he serves Prabowo’s campaign in any official capacity.
The allegedly defamatory content Reinwartia posted were photos of Prabowo declaring victory in last week’s election with the caption “sinting” (meaning insane) as well as a comment taking pity on the candidate for going crazy for not being able to fulfill his ambitions of becoming president of Indonesia.
Prabowo, who lost to Jokowi in 2014, has all but officially lost this year’s presidential election as well, with independent pollsters putting the incumbent ahead by around 55% to 45%. Prabowo has claimed victory based on his campaign’s internal exit polling, which supposedly has him winning 62% of the votes, and attacked the quick count pollsters’ data as flawed and biased.
The General Election Commission (KPU) is going to release their official tally by May 22 at the latest.
Erin’s Instagram posts have since been taken down, but screenshots of the posts are still circulating online.
Erin has been receiving support and criticism online for her post. The hashtag #SaveTaulany, referring to her husband’s second name, was among the top trending topics on Twitter in Indonesia yesterday. Many who support Erin pointed out that Fahri Hamzah, an outspoken member of the government opposition, was never sued for calling Jokowi “sinting” when criticizing the president about mandating too many public holidays to appease different religious groups.
remind them about this !!! #SaveTaulany pic.twitter.com/X69FTX1rRl
— santhica dias (@diassanthica) April 21, 2019
On the flipside, there are hashtags condemning Erin like #ErinTaulanySakitJiwa (Erin Taulany is mentally ill) that also became popular yesterday and contained tweets that personally attacked her physical appearance.
Police have not announced if the case against Erin will move to the investigative stage yet. Defamation under the controversial Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE) is an offense punishable by up to four years in prison.
