During the talk show, Ahok and Anies were challenged to deliver election-related jokes.

Accompanied by their respective running mates Djarot Saiful Hidayat and Sandiaga Uno, each were given two minutes to deliver their best jokes.

Ahok went first, beginning by saying that he would intentionally make his jokes not funny.

“Sorry, but I don’t want to make this program any funnier than ‘The Ahok Show’,” he said with a grin, referring to the name of an online interactive talk show program uploaded to his social media accounts as part of his election campaign.

He then proceeded to talk to the audience about his experiences as governor of Jakarta.

“I was on an impromptu visit the other day when I met a resident who kept frowning. He said he frowned because I would evict him. Then he showed me the invoice of his property tax that said he had to pay nothing. He somehow concluded that zero tax meant that he would be evicted,” said Ahok. “Instead of being happy, he thought he would get evicted. This is all because of the gubernatorial election.”

Ahok then recited a funny experience as deputy governor when he was visiting residents hit by floods and forced to move to the Marunda low-cost apartments in North Jakarta in 2013.

When he was inside the apartment, some civil servants suddenly rushed downstairs to meet the mayor of North Jakarta. “The civil servants were excited to meet their mayor, so I followed them, forgetting that I was the deputy governor at that time. I still thought I was just a regular businessman.” he said, this time drawing a larger laugh.

Following Ahok, Anies tried his best to make the audience laugh even though he did not keep up with the theme of the challenge.

Understanding that he is not a professional comedian, Anies asked the audience to laugh at him before he started his routine. “I would appreciate it if everyone could laugh because this is hard to do,” said Anies.

He started his performance by saying that Jakartans had done themselves proud as the word nongkrong, which is Indonesian slang for “hanging out,” had made it onto The New York Times website.

“So many young people like to nongkrong these days that The New York Times even defined the word, which according to them means ‘sitting, talking and doing nothing’,” said Anies as the audience giggled.

Anies’ jokes caused the audience, which consisted mostly of young adults, to burst out in laughter when he mentioned the popular dating app Tinder.

“I see teenagers swiping right on their smartphones and it turns out they are playing with Tinder. I wanted to download it too, but I didn’t after I found out what the app was for,” said Anies, jokingly adding that he had seen married people use the app.

The stand-up comedy segment and the whole program was filled with laughter and humorous banter, a stark contrast to the candidates’ previous TV appearances where the public could see a clear antipathy between the two tickets.

Despite all the political brawling, the fact that both candidates still managed to show off their humorous side together was something to be appreciated, said Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) political analyst Siti Zuhro.

“The program was intended to show off the humorous side of each candidate, so even though the program displayed the competition between Ahok and Anies, watching them could make people feel the program was simple and relaxing,” she said.

However, the audience, especially people who will cast their votes in the upcoming election runoff, must not misinterpret the apparent friendliness displayed by the two candidates during the program, Siti added.

“People must not interpret their intimacy as their real stance. They are competing against each other, so they will calculate and memorize each other’s words and actions,” she said.

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