Bekasi's 'Obama' Loses Election to Indonesian Rock Star With Love of Nazi Uniforms

Indonesia's most-controversial rock star may soon be the second-in-command of the country's most-maligned district.

Ahmad Dhani, and his running mate district chief candidate Sa'aduddin, led with a 2.73 percent margin in Wednesday's election to helm Bekasi district, according to his own campaign's quick count results. But the pair's closest rivals, Neneng Hasanah Yasin and Eka Supriatmaja, say that quick count results from Jaringan Survey Indonesia (JSI) show a dramatically different outcome—with Sa'aduddin and Dhani losing the race by 17 percentage points.

Now with neither side willing to back down, voters are left to choose sides in a protracted standoff between the candidate pairs. The only thing both sides can agree on is the fact that labor activist Obon Tabroni and running his mate Bambang Sumaryono—a pair known by the acronym "Obama"—lost the race in a distant third.

"As long as there's no 'money politics' and violations, we will win," Dhani bragged to local press before the election. "Who's cooler than us? Nobody. Our strongest and richest contender is the incumbent. Hopefully this time Bekasi will get the best, not the richest, leader they deserve."

It's a bizarre turn for Dhani, a man who only two months ago was accused of plotting to overthrow the government. Dhani, a vocal critic of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, initially expressed interest in challenging the man widely known as Ahok in the Jakarta governor's race. But he quickly shifted his focus to Bekasi district, running as the deputy on Sa'aduddin's ticket.

Dhani promised to move to Bekasi if he won—he's currently a South Jakarta resident—claiming that he had his eye on a plot of land in Bojongmangu village, stating "I like this view, the view here is good. I don't like urban [environments], I like the village more." But he's been threatening to move to Bekasi for some time, telling journalists that he hated Ahok so much that he would decamp for Bekasi if he won the Jakarta gubernatorial election. "If Ahok wins later, there's no way I'll appreciate it," he told local media. "I will move to Bekasi."

Now, it seems, he might have to. It didn't take long before Indonesians started to make jokes about Dhani's potential win. Bekasi is already seen as something of a punchline in Indonesia. It's a place that many Indonesians jokingly dismiss as a backwoods hellscape— a district where the roads turn to dirt and the electricity never works. The chance that Dhani may have won the election in Bekasi was too easy a joke for some to resist.

But Dhani is no stranger to bad press. He was slammed by the media over his decision to wear a Nazi uniform in a star-studded music video supporting Prabowo Subianto's failed presidential bid. He later promised to cut off his dick if Joko Widodo won the presidential race. Jokowi won, and Dhani quickly claimed that someone had Photoshopped a fake tweet, calling the whole thing a hoax. But it did little to stop a small protest from breaking out in front of his house with women brandishing signs reading "cut, cut, cut."

Dhani doubled down on dubious promises the day before the election, telling voters that he would bring the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Bekasi if he won. A fake tour poster complete with quotes comparing Bekasi to Lollapalooza quickly appeared online. The poster claimed that the band was playing Bekasi on 18 March, the same night they are booked to play a sold-out concert some 13,000 kilometers away in Vancouver, Canada.

It's still unknown if Dhani will even get the chance to follow through on his RHCP promise. The official tabulation is still ongoing, and his rivals Neneng and Eka (who ran as "Neneng YES") said there was no way that Sa'aduddin and Dhani (team "SAH" or "Legit") won the race.

"The last election was similar to our current situation, but the fact is we won," Neneng told local media. "We'll just wait for the official counts from KPUD Kabupaten Bekasi."

Dhani has remained quiet about the Bekasi election results, choosing instead to tweet angry claims that Ahok will most-definitely lose the runoff vote in Jakarta thanks to the Muslim vote. "Aku tetaplah aku" indeed.