For first-time voter 18-year-old Nafis Athallah, the election is everywhere. There are banners on the roads, pavements, and even outside homes, and his social media feed has been transformed into an election battleground, with campaign videos, fan art dedicated to candidates, and streams of opinions.
His friends are divided over who to support, and have been debating the election, conscious of the huge role younger people will play in the vote on 14 February. “Half of the active voters are young people. So it’s a very, very big demographic,” says Nafis, who is from Medan, North Sumatra.
People aged under 40 now make up 52% of the electorate in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, while under-30s account for a third of voters. The scramble to win over the key demographic is intensifying.
This month, they will not only be selecting their next president, but also executive and legislative representatives at all administrative levels across the country. Polls suggest that frontrunner Prabowo Subianto, a former military general who lost to incumbent Joko Widodo in 2014 and 2019, has a clear lead. However, it is unclear if he will manage to secure a majority of votes, which is required to win outright. If he fails to do so, a runoff will be held between the top candidates in June. Running against him is Anies Baswedan, the former governor of Jakarta, and Ganjar Pranowo, the former governor of Central Java.
Noory Okthariza, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said that there isn’t one candidate who is strongly associated with the youth vote, and, instead, support from young people seems to be distributed across the board. “That’s why [candidates] try every means to reach out to these young voters – the way they talk, the way they act, the way they dress, the way they use social media platforms like TikTok,” he said.
Parties and candidates have embraced everything from giving away tickets to K-pop concerts, to carefully curating their social media feeds with cats and viral dancing.
Nafis, a communications studies student, says he cares about protecting civil rights, and dislikes how sweeping laws in Indonesia can be used to stifle freedom of speech.
Some of Nafis’ friends support Prabowo, he says, adding they have differing priorities. “They think Indonesia will be more secure and will be better with someone who has a strong personality like Prabowo,” he said.
Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander, is a controversial figure, who has been dogged by allegations of past human rights abuses. This includes claims he was involved in the abduction and enforced disappearance of student activists in 1997 and 1998. He was discharged from the army over the allegations, but has never been criminally prosecuted and has denied wrongdoing.
He is also accused of involvement in rights abuses in Papua and East Timor. This includes targeted killings of East Timorese civilians, including a 1983 massacre in which hundreds of people, most of them men, were killed in the village of Kraras – since known as “the village of widows”. He has called claims of his involvement in the atrocity “unproven allegations, innuendoes and third-hand reports”.
Prabowo, who has long been known for his fiery temper, has undergone a stark rebranding to win over voters, with his campaign presenting him as a grandpa-like figure, who speaks more softly than in previous years, and even dances jovially on stage.
Prabowo is running on a joint ticket with vice-presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the eldest son of current president Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi - allowing him to capitalise on the political clout of the outgoing leader.
Tete, 19, a first-time voter from Wonosobo in Central Java, says he follows Prabowo on Instagram and has seen videos of him out on the job – a sign, he says, that he is putting in the work and accountable to the people. He has also watched Prabowo’s famous dance moves, even impersonating them with friends. “They’re very cute and fun and it makes Prabowo look humble,” he adds.
He feels Prabowo, an ex-military general, would offer firm leadership, and hopes, if Prabowo is elected, he would continue Jokowi’s programs – especially infrastructure projects such as stadiums and highways that haven’t yet been completed.
Tete has benefited from such projects, he adds: there’s a new bus terminal near his house, and a new highway between Yogyakarta and Jakarta. Before the journey took 12 hours, but it now takes less than eight.
“A lot of people would like Jokowi to continue for two or three more years, even if there’s a term limit,” he says.
Charliensia Hankssasar Pandanga, 22, a third-year English literature student who lives in Bali, also wants greater investment in infrastructure, especially outside big cities.
“Let’s try again to look at other areas – don’t focus too much on central or more developed areas,” she says. “Because less developed or remote areas are parts of Indonesia, too.”
Last month, she paid about 4m rupiah (slightly over £200) for a return trip from Bali, where she works, to her home in Waikabubak on Indonesia’s Sumba island, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province. It was just 1.4m rupiah before Covid. She hopes greater investment could bring the cost down.
Charliensia wants to become an English literature lecturer, and says she hopes to improve the quality of education offered in her home area, which now lags behind every other province except Papua in terms of educational attainment. She hopes a future government will also address this issue. “I often meet children who have reached junior high school – yet can’t even read,” she says. “Perhaps because their schools are remote, so no teacher wants to teach there. In terms of the salary too, perhaps the teachers see that if they teach there, they don’t make anything,” she said.
Research by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies suggests that younger voters are concerned about issues such as job availability and unemployment, and, increasingly, about issues relating to climate change and the environment.
Rafaela Xaviera, 24, a Jakarta-based environmental activist, said climate-related issues have featured in campaign debates and in manifestos. But there’s a lack of meaningful solutions and commitments, she added. “There are some strategies to tackle the climate crisis issue and accelerate the energy transition, but what we see is it’s full of false solutions that won’t solve the problem at all and even make more problems in the future.”
Jokowi’s plan to move the capital city from overcrowded, sinking Jakarta to Borneo – a policy supported by Ganjar and Prabowo – will not solve the underlying environment problems in Jakarta, she said. She fears that the project will accelerate deforestation in Kalimantan and threaten the prosperity of the Indigenous community.
Mario Yosryandi, 23, a human rights activist and freelance writer based in Jakarta, originally from East Nusa Tenggara, said he too was concerned about agrarian and environmental issues, as well as civic rights and the national debt. Mario initially supported Jokowi but says he felt increasingly uncomfortable with how Jokowi has used his power while in office. He also feels uneasy at the involvement of Jokowi’s son and son-in-law in politics and adds that a court ruling that created a loophole allowing for Gibran to run as vice-president was “morally wrong”.
“A lot of my friends would love to be in Gibran’s position, and contribute to the country by joining political office, but they don’t have the same privilege of just suddenly being tapped as the vice presidential candidate,” he adds.
