Talking Indonesia: Digital populism

A week ago, just as this podcast was being recorded, the hashtag #daruratdemokrasi (democratic emergency) went viral across Indonesian social media. It was prompted by the latest example of Indonesia’s national legislature (DPR) attempting to override or block a Constitutional Court ruling, in this case one related to the eligibility of candidates to run in regional elections.

The online campaign quickly turned into calls for real action to take place on Thursday 22 August, in the form of protests at the DPR in Jakarta and other cities across the country. This would be the DPR’s final sitting day before it headed into recess ahead of the November elections, and therefore the last chance for any amendments to be passed.

The response on the streets by some thousands of protesters, including celebrities, filmmakers, actors and academics, was significant enough to force the DPR to pause. This effectively put an end to what was seen by the protesters as an attempt to both prevent a key rival of the Jokowi-Prabowo coalition, Anies Baswedan, from contesting the Jakarta gubernatorial election, and allow Jokowi’s second son, Kaesang, to stand as a candidate in Central Java.

This will be seen as a victory for a grassroots movement that began with digital activism and then spilled out on to the street. The question now is, will this movement be sustained, or was it just a one-off?

Over the past decade, digital activism has become deeply embedded and highly professionalised within Indonesia’s political and social ecosystem. In the recent presidential election, the size of a candidate’s team of ‘buzzers’ and their stable of social media influencers was a decisive factor in delivering voters for the major parties, especially from the increasingly important Gen Z demographic. Prabowo’s landslide win was made possible, in large part, due to a re-branding of his image and targeted use of TikTok throughout his campaign.

Who and what is behind these campaigns driving what is known as digital populism in Indonesian politics? In a time when Indonesian democracy is under threat and protestors against the government are become more and more frustrated, does the internet in Indonesia still have the potential to be a force for good?

In this week’s episode, Dr Jemma Purdey chats with Ary Hermawan. Ary is the current editor of Indonesia at Melbourne and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute. He previously worked as a managing editor and editor at large of Indonesia’s leading English daily, The Jakarta Post. He also briefly served as deputy director of Amnesty International Indonesia. His article in Melbourne Asia Review  on how Indonesia’s oligarchs exploit cyberspace is available here.

In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.