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Clerics who enlighten, clerics who frighten
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Presidential candidates Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin, General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Arief Budiman (center) and presidential candidates Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno are on stage during the first candidate debate on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2019. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
D
éjà vu. Was that the overriding feeling you got when you watched the first presidential debate on Jan. 17? It was for me. Of course this would only apply to those of you who watched the presidential candidate debate in June 2014, which also pitted Joko “Jokowi” Widodo against Prabowo Subianto.
But there were two people on the stage that made you realize you weren’t in a time warp: Ma’ruf Amin and Sandiaga Uno, respectively the running mates of Jokowi and Prabowo.
Talk about contrasting personas! Age (Ma’ruf 75, Sandiaga 49), attire (Ma’ruf wearing the traditional cleric white koko shirt and batik sarong; Sandiaga in a spiffy Western suit), and delivery. Ma’ruf, former Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) head, was mainly silent, looking awkward and quite honestly, a bit lost. The American-educated, former businessman Sandiaga on the other hand, was urbane, suave and for the most part, relaxed.
Politics is often about symbols and image, and a man in a sarong is not one we have ever seen in a presidential debate. Ma’ruf was the odd-man out, not just because of his attire, but also because unlike the others, he has never been in a political debate before. Sandiaga had at least been in a gubernatorial candidate debate as the running mate of Anies Baswedan, currently Jakarta governor.
