THIS GEN GAP IS TOO WIDE FOR COMFORT

 

CAN THIS ODD COUPLE SURVIVE?                  

Before debating with Democrat VP candidate Tim Walz, the Republican nominee JD Vance  said the contestants’  views matter little because voters go for the top of the ticket, not the bottom.

That may be right in the US, though not in Indonesia.

This is anecdotal but when contacts blushingly admit to voting for cashiered former general and alleged human rights abuser Prabowo Subianto, they reason by adding they wanted Gibran Rakabuming.

Although the Constitution says VPs are the spare tyre, in reality they’ve been proxies for a voter bloc.  The current VP Ma’ruf Amin, 81, was an esteemed Muslim cleric selected as a crutch when in 2019 President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s advisors detected a religious limp.

This year the age has dropped. In the February poll the wrinkle-free 37-year-old eldest son of once hyper-popular Jokowi became the bait to snare new gen voters the oldies can’t understand.  He spoke prokem (Javanese street slang) looked fresh, seemed cool.

In brief, someone young electors found relatable. 

Prabowo, the plump pensioner atop the ticket is already on borrowed time, five years beyond the average life expectancy for Indonesian men.

During the campaign he tried to appeal to teens with hair dye, silly dances and adopting a cuddly cartoon character; it looked forced, flawed and squirmingly embarrassing.

Odd couples can sometimes thrive, though difficulties expand when each party comes from a different background.

Gibran, a small-town mayor, said little during the campaign, as the label ‘son of Jokowi’ was enough. Voters backed him not for his achievements but as a drop site for their expectations.  A prime prayer from the electorate has been for politics without corruption.

A tough call: Indonesia ranks 89 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index.  One estimate reckons it’ll take a century of reform before the Republic sheds the curse, and that’s going to need brave and committed leaders. They’ve yet to appear.  

Over half the 205 million registered electors this year were millennials (born in the 1990s) and Gen Zs (created this century). 

First time voters knew little of the autocratic Orde Baru (New Order) administration of the late President Soeharto – 32 years of repression. But his one-time son-in-law Prabowo was happily embedded in that era and appears to want it returned.

Gibran couldn’t muster a backstory in the pesantren - Islamic boarding schools that are supposed to instil morality - or the military that reckons it’s the custodian of national duty.   Instead, like a middle-class lad, he’d been schooled in Singapore learning business management and English.

Dad suggested he take over flogging furniture – but the scion wanted to sit on his own stool.  His Chilli Pari catering service rapidly garnered more than AUD 2.2 million, exceeding the value of Papa’s trade.

Perhaps this displays great business acumen though the mean-spirited suggested he profited by association – a nepo baby.

 When Jokowi won the 2014 election, family photos showed Gibran looking surly, more like a petulant teen than a mid-20s adult.  At the time he professed disinterest in politics.

When Gibran did venture a public opinion he got his lips burned by suggesting pregnant women  swig sulphuric acid to prevent stunted babies.  He meant folic acid.

We know he likes soccer (so does almost every man in Indonesia) and supports Barcelona – but that's the limit of the profundities he’ll share.

Like most Indonesians Jokowi’s son played with social media, allegedly using the alias Fufufafa. Long before he became VP-in-waiting, the account was posting unfavourable comments about his Dad’s rival.

The slanders from Prabowo’s camp included claims that Jokowi was secretly a Christian and his father a Communist.

Fufufafa  hit back, reportedly writing:  "Soldiers are dismissed, divorced, children are waving, supporters are radical, coalition parties do not support all out."  This cryptic sentence is supposed to refer to Prabowo’s past.

He was cashiered in 1998 and divorced from Soeharto’s daughter Titiek the same year.  Their only son Didit Hediprasetyo, 40, is a fashion designer in Europe and whispered to be gay.  Populist Indonesian politicians have been urging for laws against homosexuality.

Prabowo has stayed single and seems indifferent to women so there’s no First Lady – a great disappointment in a culture where family loves and feuds are essentials in everyday chat.

By contrast Gibran married local Catholic Selvi Ananda who renounced her faith to marry.  They have two kids.  Attempts by your correspondent to interview the family have been ignored.

The other confusing comments in the online posting are interpreted as references to Prabowo getting Islamic groups to back his earlier campaigns; that support wasn’t sought this year.

Gibran has appeared to deny ownership of the Fufufafa account and tried to flick away the controversy, but the Twittersphere is not so simply dusted.  When Soeharto was boss public critics of the government feared a door-kick by police or army boots.

Not so easy now when the anonymous publishers of scuttlebutt thrive on social media.  So Prabowo has dashed back to his mentor's policies by scrapping Jokowi’s impromptu media conferences. 

There'll be occasional formal events where the prez will select approved questions from chosen reps of partisan publishers.

Prabowo’s spokesperson Hasan Nasbi explained the new system is part of “a greater scheme to limit access provided to journalists ,,, and that the president-elect would only make official statements when necessary.

"For instance, if the President is on a visit to a wet market and he is subjected to questions from reporters, he may not be ready with an answer. We don't want to create confusion."

Hasan also said his boss would need to prepare responses and that he’d only “speak to the press in routine press briefings and only on matters that have been confirmed.”

Maybe the VP is happy with this deal because he’s disclosed little and seems to have an ideology of the same magnitude.  Easier to tag along for the fame and business boost and hope the old fella doesn’t cark it in the next five years.

There’s no marshal’s baton in this neophyte’s knapsack.  Nor any spray can of charisma.

He once stood up to his gentle Dad.  Can he do the same with his fearsome boss?  Will he dare? 

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 10 September 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/can-this-odd-couple-survive/