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ore than 20 leaders of different faiths expressed deep concern over the public’s ability to have constructive, positive debates about the coming presidential election amid post-truth politics in Indonesia during a discussion in Jakarta on Thursday.

Post-truth politics is not a new phenomenon, but observers say there has been greater strides toward it in the modern era.

In Indonesia, both presidential candidates contesting the 2019 race share a common interest in giving no room to hoaxes, they said. But some politicians have used it to enhance their potential and gain leverage.

Recent hoaxes have ranged from the misinformation about seven containers of cast ballots from China for presidential candidate pair Joko Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin that caused uproar on the internet, to the laughable political fiasco surrounding actress-cum-activist Ratna Sarumpaet in October, when she falsely claimed that she had been assaulted by several people in Bandung, West Java.

Former Constitutional Court chief justice and Muslim figure Mahfud MD said the public was receptive to alternative facts and fake news, while they tended to retweet posts on Twitter without checking and rechecking facts, which fueled post-truth politics.

With the nonstop flow of information, he said, a contender could win office because of their ability to discredit rival candidates, including through lies and the use of sectarianism, rather than the basis of a solid track record.

“This is very dangerous because it can involve religious matters. For example, the idea that if one does not vote for a specific candidate, one fails to fulfill religious duties,” he said.

Catholic priest Benny Susetyo shared the same view, but highlighted that the main cause was that the relationship between experts and the public had collapsed as anyone could now represent themselves as an agent of truth in the post-truth era.

“We’re in the middle of the death of expertise. Religious leaders should take on the role of selecting facts amid the spread hatred,” Susetyo said.

Concurring with Susetyo, Muslim organization Muhammadiyah secretary Abdul Mu’ti said besides the death of expertise, information nowadays was no longer supported by logic but intention, which for instance is for popularity.

“Online clerics are more popular nowadays than those who preach in physical venues. Muslims do not move from one place to another for knowledge anymore. They only need to move channels [on YouTube],” he said.

With the lack of physical interaction, he said, cultural values could be uprooted. He said further that religious leaders should have more physical interaction with the public even though it would require more effort.

“We were afraid of teachers back then, but now if we don’t like them, we make memes of them,” he said.

Budi Santoso, chair of the spiritual council of the Supreme Council for the Confucian Religion agreed that religious leaders should play a greater public role.

During the discussion, church leaders also agreed on counteracting misinformation with more intense involvement in society.

“We are targeting religious people because religion-based hoaxes can affect them the most,” Anthony Simanjuntak from the Indonesian Communion of Churches said.

Mahfud added that besides religious leaders, the government should also play a bigger role through law enforcement to create a deterrent effect, because fake news would continue to be produced and reproduced even after the election is over.

According to articles 14 and 15 of Law No. 1/1946 on criminal law, hoax spreaders can be sentenced to 10 years in prison. Article 28 of the Electronic Information and Transactions Law states that those who spread hate based on ethnicity, religion and race can be sentenced to six years in prison. (ggq)