TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Candidates take on ‘mannequin challenge’ to get votes
Change Size
Freeze act: Screen shots show Anies Baswedan and his wife Fery Farhati Ganis (left) and Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama (right) attempting the “mannequin challenge” as part of campaigning for the February gubernatorial election. (Courtesy of Instagram/YouTube)
O
ne evening, Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Anies Baswedan, accompanied by his wife Fery Farhati Ganis, prepared to pose for a group photo when he suddenly turned rigid, like a mannequin, and so did dozens of others near him, including the person holding the phone to take the picture.
Freezing in place with different poses, Anies, Fery and the others were engaged in an elaborate scenario for a video meme, known as the “mannequin challenge”, the latest internet sensation that has swept the world.
The video trend features groups of people striking frozen poses while a cameraman walks through them to show their pose in detail.
The video trend, which is usually set to the song “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd, was first started by high school teenagers.
However, a long list of well-known public figures have followed their path.
Now that the video has gone viral, social media-savvy Anies has added to the list of prominent figures in the country who have participated in the latest internet sensation. Anies’ stunt will likely catch the attention of young voters in the capital.
“Indirectly, [the aim] is to reach them [the young voters],” said Naufal Firman Yursak, the media center head of Anies’ campaign team.
(Read also: Why the Mannequin Challenge is the latest internet sensation)
Anies’ team hopes that with the mannequin challenge video, voters will see the fun side of Anies.
“This was a spontaneous effort [...] to show that despite his serious look, he can also be fun,” Naufal said, adding that the video was aimed at convincing young voters that Anies, now 47, could represent their interests.
Aside from that, he also explained that the video was the team’s attempt to “offer good political education” to young voters.
“Principally, young voters are important because they give us votes and they are also [objects] for us to teach them peaceful politics,” he added.
Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has also undertaken the mannequin challenge.
His army of volunteers, including celebrities like Luna Maya and Uya Kuya, forced Ahok to be a part of the global trend to connect with younger voters.
“This [the video] was not an initiative from the campaign team. It was an idea from the volunteers,” Ivanhoe Semen, a spokesman with the Ahok-Djarot Saiful Hidayat team, said.
According to the Jakarta Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta), about 29 percent of the 7,132,856 voters on the preliminary list of eligible voters (DPS) are aged between 17 and 30 years.
Despite this relatively modest figure, young voters are still an important segment, Ivanhoe said.
Young voters are considered “rational” because they do not take religion or race into consideration when choosing a candidate, according to a July survey conducted by the Jakarta-based pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC).
They are more concerned with issues related to job creation, education, mobility and corruption eradication, SMRC survey executive director Djayadi Hanan told The Jakarta Post in October.
While Ahok and Anies have joined the trend in the hope that the video meme will make them more relevant to younger voters, the youngest gubernatorial candidate, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, now 38, has so far abstained from participating in the trend.
Agus has instead posted a video of himself on Instagram singing a romantic song for his wife Annisa Pohan. The video has also gone viral.
A survey by Public Opinion and Policy Research (Populi) predicts that 46.7 percent of young voters aged between 17 and 25 are likely to vote for Ahok-Djarot, followed by Anies-Sandiaga with 28.3 percent and Agus-Sylviana Murni on 13.3 percent.
The Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) arrived at a different result, placing Agus-Sylviana as the most electable candidate pair among young voters with 33.8 percent, followed by Anies-Sandiaga with 30.8 percent and Ahok-Djarot with 27.8 percent.
