Activist John Muhammad said he initiated the Four Fingers movement amid growing opposition among civil society groups to Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka, a candidate pair that has been marred with controversies due to support from President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his allies.
ith President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo showing his inclination to favor Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka in the presidential election, online activists have come up with the “Four Fingers” movement to encourage people to vote for either of the other two candidates.
John Muhammad, a former 1998 student activist, initiated the movement, saying that Prabowo-Gibran, which is listed as ticket number two on the ballot, is not worthy of the people’s votes given the various constitutional and legal overreaches that the pair and its supporters have committed.
The leader of the Indonesian Green Party, a political group that does not participate in the 2024 election, introduced in social media over the weekend Salam Empat Jari (Four Fingers Salute), which refers to tickets number one Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar and number three Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD.
“This movement shows that there is a growing awareness that we want ticket number two to lose more than we wish victory for either ticket numbers one or three,” he said on Monday, as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
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John introduced the movement on his Instagram account @johnmuhammad_ along with the four-finger symbol. “Four Fingers, an expression to choose [anyone other than] Prabowo-Gibran,” he said in one of his posts. He also introduced the #BukanPrabowoGibran hashtag, while calling on civil society groups that have been upset by the candidate pair and Jokowi’s rising political dynasty to support his movement.
He denied that the movement was backed by any of the presidential candidates or their supporters.
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