Ma’ruf Amin was anything but young and millennial — until he showed up for the first presidential debate on Thursday night.

When incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo picked Ma’ruf as his running mate, questions arose as to whether the 75-year-old cleric could help Jokowi court the so-called “millennial voters” — a demographic that would make up a large voting bloc in 2019.

After all, a sarong and white sneakers hardly make for the killer outfit of the day.

Jokowi’s camp realized this but stuck to its decision. Soon after Jokowi’s announcement, Oesman Sapta Oedang of the Hanura Party said Ma’ruf could be called a millennial.

“Millennial is not just about age. It is about actions and attitude,” he said.

It turned out that what Ma’ruf needed to do was to show up as himself to finally gain the approval stamp from the millennials, at least those who were on Twitter during the debate. Donning a white shirt, white scarf, traditional black peci and his sarong, Ma’ruf soon became the talk of the town.

Some considered Ma’ruf a burden to Jokowi because of his quietness during the debate.

According to kompas.com, Ma’ruf only spoke five times, for a total period of 4 minutes and 16 seconds. In comparison, Jokowi spoke 21 times and clocked up 23 minutes and 46 seconds of speaking time.

Half of Ma’ruf’s speaking time was allocated to his explanation of terrorism, one of the main issues addressed in the first debate. The rest he used to reiterate his support for Jokowi.

Luckily for Ma’ruf, his relative silence was gold for netizens. Some were actually waiting for his turn to speak.

A user joked that Ma’ruf had left the chat, in reference to the ubiquitous group chats in Indonesia.

On Twitter, @ikramarki correlated Ma’ruf’s silence to his religiosity. In a fictitious conversation, Ma’ruf was asked why he barely said anything.

Ma’ruf answered, “Islam teaches us to avoid debate.” Another netizen swooned over the user, responding with, “Masya Allah [as God willed]”.

The moment that sealed the deal for netizens was when Ma’ruf was asked whether he had any additional comments after Jokowi finished his statement. Nonchalantly, Ma’ruf said, “I have nothing to add.”

His response quickly became a meme, used as an answer in various hypothetical scenarios.

Apparently Ma’ruf struck a chord with students, since similar comments are abundant on Twitter.

Another user, @farhanrdhana, likened Ma’ruf to himself during a group presentation.

Similarly, user @gz_ahmad said, “Pak Ma’ruf Amin is basically me in every class discussion.”

User with handle @Ihsanrafd said, “If Maruf Amin [were] in a group presentation, his part would be changing the slides.”

Besides the jokes, Twitter user @oreogillis called for more appreciation for Ma’ruf, writing that, “I like that guy despite how little he spoke but how influential he was when he did.”

Twitter user Gennaro Jusuf sums up in one sentence: “Ma’ruf Amin represents all of us introverts.”

Twitter is the most exciting platform to watch and engage in political conversations, as was evident during the recent presidential election debate, which saw thousands share their thoughts and opinions with the hashtag #DebatPilpres2019.

According to the United States-based social networking company, more than 1.3 million tweets were posted during the debate on Thursday night, with the peak of the conversation occurring between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., when more than 290,000 tweets were posted.

In a statement, Twitter also shared some of the most popular tweets circulated during the debate, with one from @ikramarki that poked fun at Ma’ruf Amin for staying silent during the earlier part of the debate having so far been retweeted more than 18,390 times and receiving more than 11,160 likes.

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