Ethnic and religious sentiments are two factors driving voter decisions in the upcoming Jakarta gubernatorial election, studies have reported.

Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, the first son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), and his running mate Sylviana Murni seem to have taken these factors more into account than the two other candidate pairs. As proof of this, Agus and Sylviana have been more assertively reaching out to various ethnic groups than incumbents Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Saiful Hidayat or Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno.

Ardian Sopa of the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) said that in the capital, aside from rationality, a number of people also made decisions based on their emotional attachments triggered by both religious and ethnic issues.

“Emotional voters do not see the working programs [of the candidates], but [are more driven by] emotional attachments. For example, they try to see whether a person’s personality has negative sides or if they have better values than others — decisions that are determined purely by emotions,” said Ardian.

Earlier this month, for instance, Agus, along with his mother Ani Yudhoyono and SBY, was introduced to the extended Pohan Family and Daughters gathering (Parpoda) in Jakarta.

The family was dressed for the occasion in traditional Batak textiles called ulos as a way of conveying their blessings for Agus and Sylviana.

“We can see that Agus is the most diligent candidate in terms of visiting groups of Sundanese, Bataknese, Javanese and others,” said Ardian. “These kinds of visits are designed to appeal to segmented voters who have emotional attachments.”

He said the efficacy of such a strategy was shown in an LSI electability survey conducted with 880 respondents from Jan. 5 to 11 in which Agus and Sylviana were ranked first with 32.6 percent of votes. Meanwhile, Ahok and Djarot came in second with 32.6 percent, followed by Anies and Sandiaga with
21.4 percent.

After the survey, the LSI concluded that due to religious tendencies, Ahok and Djarot would be likely to lose a match-up round against any of their contenders if the election was conducted at that time.

In a head-to-head scenario, for example, Ahok and Djarot garnered 33.9 percent support from the respondents, while Agus and Sylviana got 48.1 percent.

Ahok and Djarot even got fewer votes at 29.7 percent against Anies and Sandiaga, who booked 41.8 percent.

The survey suggested that because of this sentiment, Ahok was now the least favorite candidate with only 58 percent of respondents saying that they liked him.

Meanwhile, Agus and Anies were liked by 76.6 percent and 73.1 percent of respondents, respectively.

“47.2 percent of anti-Ahok sentiment was caused by Ahok’s blunder over [the Quranic verse] Al Maidah,” Ardian said, adding that some of the negative views were about Ahok’s outspoken leadership style.

Ahok has become tangled up in a blasphemy case after he cited the holy verse during a speech last year, which set off a firestorm of criticism from several Muslim groups.

Another study by Jakarta-based PT Grup Riset Potensial (GRP) recently found that the same religious and ethnic sentiment that attracted voters to Agus and Sylvi at the same time discouraged Jakartans from casting their votes for Ahok and Djarot.

GRP president director Satrio Wiseno added that each of the candidate pairs had secured votes from districts with residents of similar backgrounds to them. As an example he noted that Ahok and Djarot were favored in areas with large numbers of ethnic Chinese residents such as Glodok, West Jakarta. “It is clear that the politics of identity still matters,” Satrio said.

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