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Why the middle class switched to Anies
The (upper) middle class, who many considered to be Ahok’s loyal supporters, turned their backs on the governor at the last minute for several reasons.
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Presumptive governor-elect Anies Baswedan (left) and his running mate Sandiaga Uno (right) react after quick count results pointed to a victory for the pair during the runoff election on April 19, 2017. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
T
he time has come for intellectuals, activists, survey institutions and the media to stop equating Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno’s’s victory in the Jakarta gubernatorial election with the rise of radical Islam and fundamentalism that threatens to snuff out democracy and silence the voice of minorities.
This is all just a political fabrication that is not based on real data. Data from Polmark Indonesia on the second round of voting shows that, contrary to what many people believe, Anies-Sandi won votes from across all economic classes.
Polmark executive director, Eep Saefulloh Fatah, is Anies’ political consultant in the Jakarta election.
Prior to the runoff, all surveys and campaign teams predicted that it would be a neck-to-neck and too-close-to-call race. However, the surveys were all wrong. Anies-Sandi won by a wide margin of more than 15 percent.
Not only did the incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat fail to maintain the votes they won in the first round, they also lost a significant number of previous supporters.
What makes the slippage more surprising is that the defeat of Ahok came about when voter turnout hit a record 78 percent, compared with 77 percent in the first round on Feb. 15.
One important factor in the landslide win for Anies-Sandi is the fact that, according to analysis from Polmark Indonesia, the (upper) middle class, who many considered to be Ahok’s loyal supporters, turned their backs on the governor at the last minute for several reasons.
