Despite social tensions tainting this year’s mayoral election, community leaders in Singkawang, West Kalimantan, have pledged to maintain the city’s image as a “tolerant,” multiethnic and multireligious society.

With a diverse makeup, Singkawang has long been known as a place of tolerance, where people have been able to live in peace with each other regardless of background.

In 2015, a Setara Institute survey conducted in several cities across the archipelago ranked Singkawang as the third-most tolerant city in the country after Pematang Siantar in North Sumatra and Salatiga in Central Java.

Singkawang Dayak Customary Council (DAD) head Aloysius Kilim said to maintain the tolerant city status, ethnic and religious harmony had to be preserved.

He made the statement in response to the Singkawang election, in which four candidate pairs with various ethnicity and religious backgrounds were running for the city’s top post.

“No candidate with Dayak [the region’s native people] ethnicity was running in the election. Nonetheless, institutionally, we have never dictated to our people to support a certain candidate pair,” said Kilim.

Two female candidates of Chinese descent competed for the mayoral post on Feb. 15. Singkawang Mayor Awang Ishak’s wife, Tjhai Nyit Kim, also known as Malaika Fitri, ran alongside running mate Suriyadi. Meanwhile, Tjhai Chui Mie, a former Singkawang Legislative Council speaker, contested the election with deputy Irwan. They competed against candidate pairs Abdul Mutalib-Muhammadin and Andi Syarif-Nurmansyah, in which the latter ran as independents.

Social unrest had tainted the race’s early stages. A group of people attacked the Singkawang General Elections Commission (KPU Singkawang) office to demonstrate their rejection of one candidate pair they allegedly deemed as unqualified. The incident continued with vandalism of a dragon statue, a Singkawang icon.

In a separate incident, unidentified people threw a Molotov cocktail into a Chinese temple, locally known as klenteng, in the downtown area. The conflicts, however, were resolved quickly and peacefully.

Ahead of election day, Singkawang Police categorized 123 out of 405 polling stations “vulnerable” to disruption because of the condition of residents living in those areas or district-related matters.

“I hope there will be no incidents related to tribal affiliations, religion, race and societal groups [SARA] in this election. This is because Singkawang has been known as a tolerant city despite its multiethnic and multireligious society. But we don’t want to underestimate the situation and we are ready to dispatch our personnel at anytime,” said Singkawang Police chief Sandi Alfadien Mustafa prior to voting day.

Singkawang Chinese Customary Council (MABT) chairman Wijaya Kurniawan asserted that effective communication was the guarantor of a harmonious multiethnic and multireligious city. Each time a potential social conflict emerged, the council immediately communicated with related stakeholders to prevent the conflict from escalating.

“So far communication among ethnic and religious groups in this city has been very intimate. There has never been large-scale social friction because we all want to live peacefully here,” said Wijaya.

For the election, the police had prepared 303 personnel, with 100 personnel from West Kalimantan Police and another 100 from the Indonesian Military as backup. Auxiliary forces comprising 150 Singkawang police officers and 180 police personnel from nearby regencies, such as Bengkayang, Mempawah and Sambas, as well as 200 military personnel, had also been readied.