Indonesians Cast Ballots in Contentious Jakarta Election

Millions of Indonesians took to the polls on Wednesday morning to cast their ballots in a heated race for Jakarta governor that observers have called a street fight between the country's political elites and a litmus test for Indonesia's pluralistic ideals.

"This is becoming a proxy war between the ruling elites—Jokowi vs Prabowo vs Yudhoyono," said Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani. "It's overshadowed all the other races. It just sucked out all the air."

The capital's incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama is facing off against Anies Baswedan, who is running under the party of former presidential contender Prabowo Subianto, and Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, the son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The Jakarta governor's election has taken on a new importance in recent years. President Joko Widodo was able to ride the momentum of a win in the 2012 governor's race to the Presidential Palace, and the election is now seen by many as a practice run for the 2019 presidential election.

"Five years ago, in the 2012 election, no one really paid attention to the Jakarta election," Yohanes said. "It was a mundane affair, but after Jokowi won and leveraged it into the presidency, everyone started to pay attention."

But it's also been one of the most dramatic races in recent history. The governor, a man popularly known as Ahok, is facing blasphemy charges over a statement he made on the campaign trail about claims that Muslims shouldn't vote for a Christian leader. Those allegations, which stemmed from an edited video posted to Facebook, set off a series of massive, and at times chaotic, protests in the streets of the capital, and cast the election in racial and sectarian tones.

Ahok is a Chinese Indonesian and a Christian, making him a significant minority in this Muslim-majority country. His gruff, no-nonsense approach to running the city has won him both fans and enemies during his term in office. But the blasphemy allegations were seen by many as a blow to his electability. Polls at the start of the campaign season found that most Jakartans thought Ahok had done a good job, but that many were wary of voting for him in the midst of the scandal.

"In normal times he would get re-elected with his eyes shut, but these are not normal times," Yohanes said. "[The blasphemy charges] played a big role. It's like Hillary's emails, it just followed her all over the place. Same with Ahok, it keeps getting brought up again and again and it makes voters queasy."

But Ahok was still leading the pack in the run-up to the election, according to polls. But Anies was in a close second, and with a four percent margin of error, Ahok's 3.66 percent lead still left the race too close to call.

At least one candidate needs to win at least 50 percent of the vote to take the election in a single round, an unlikely event in a three candidate race, according to experts. If no one is able to capture at least half the vote, a second round runoff vote between the top two candidates will be held, likely in April.

"There is a likelihood of two rounds judging by the surveys on electability, but this gubernatorial election is dynamic," said Muhammad Qodari, of the survey agency Indobarometer. "Survey results only give an overview of the race. For example, back in the 2012 election, the electability of Fauzi Bowo was high, but Jokowi won."

The tight race set off fresh concerns of vote buying and intimidation. Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) warned that candidates might "use any means, including vote-buying, to pass the first round of the election," including offering cash for votes or stuffing the ballot box.

The Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) told VICE Indonesia that there were already more than 100 reports of election violations before the start of Wednesday's vote. The agency said it would send monitors to polling places, but added that it hadn't seen any reports of vote buying before the election.

"We will send watchdogs to guard at polling stations considered vulnerable to intimidation or vote buying," said Abah Fahrudin, the head of the Jakarta chapter of Bawaslu. "For example, in apartments because we are worried about voters who are not enrolled in the voting lists.

"Another example is we are prioritizing supervision in prisons and detention centers, and the locations of evictions because those residents were relocated and usually don't have the appropriate identification."

But others said that cash rarely translates into more votes in Jakarta.

"Vote-buying is rather difficult to do in Jakarta," said Qodari. "People are more aware."