With three weeks left until election day, the presidential contenders have begun the mass campaign period by staging rallies in the strongholds of their respective rivals.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo made an appearance in front of thousands of supporters at Maulana Yusuf Stadium in Serang, Banten, a province that Prabowo Subianto won by a margin of 14.2 percentage points in the 2014 presidential elections.

Jokowi’s challenger, Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo, opted to hold his first mass campaign rally at Karebosi Field in Makassar, South Sulawesi, which the President won with a whopping 71.43 percent of the vote five years ago.

Both Jokowi and Prabowo gave speeches that reprised recurring themes from their respective campaigns.

Jokowi, clad in his trademark white shirt, arrived to cheers and called on his supporters to fight against “hoaxes and slander” and once again promoted his employment, affordable food and free university card programs.

“I want to remind you all that on Wednesday, April 17, 2019, don’t forget to vote for the ones in the white clothes,” he said in his speech. “Vote for the one in the white clothes!”

Jokowi’s running mate and Muslim cleric Ma’ruf Amin was scheduled to join the President at the stadium, but was unable to leave the pesantren (Islamic boarding school) that he was visiting due to the large crowds surrounding the area.

“The plan was for Kiai [teacher] Ma’ruf Amin to join [Jokowi] but there was an extraordinary [reception] at the Tanara pesantren. Kiai, clerics and ustad all came to support Pak Ma’ruf,” Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) secretary-general and Jokowi campaign team secretary Hasto Kristiyanto said on Sunday.

“Because of the large crowds, it was decided that Pak Jokowi would campaign in Serang and Pak Ma’ruf would stay at the pesantren in Tanara.”

Prabowo, on the other hand, once again highlighted the economy in his speech at Karebosi Field.

He was accompanied by businessman and South Sulawesi native Erwin Aksa, the nephew of Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who is credited with helping Jokowi to a landslide victory in the province last time around.

“Our economy is poor because Indonesian money is continually going overseas,” Prabowo said to the crowd, which responded with chants of “Prabowo! Prabowo!”

“That’s why we need to vote for a firm government that will not just import everything. We need a government that defends the Indonesian people.”

Prabowo’s running-mate and former Jakarta deputy governor Sandiaga Uno, meanwhile, spent the weekend in Central Java, another province that Jokowi won by a landslide in 2014.

On Sunday, he attended the 2019 Young Entrepreneur Summit (YES) in Sragen, Central Java, repeating his usual talking points on entrepreneurship and lowering youth unemployment rates.

“Right now there are still many young people who find it difficult to get work, that are unemployed. I experienced that in the past,” Sandiaga said to the YES attendees. “The One District One Entrepreneurship (OK OCE) program is the solution to that problem. Young people should become the players, not just the spectators.”

Hasto said Jokowi was scheduled to visit Banyuwangi and Jember in East Java in the coming days, and would also pay a visit to Sumatra, which is considered a base for Prabowo voters.

Prabowo, meanwhile, is scheduled to hold a rally in Merauke, Papua, on Monday, Indonesia’s easternmost province that has long been plagued by extreme poverty and violent separatism and is thought to be firmly in Jokowi’s camp.

University of Indonesia political expert Sri Budi Eko Wardhani said the mass campaign period would primarily function as a way to “firm up” voters’ choices.

“With less than 30 days until election day, the majority of voters will have already made up their mind about who they will pick,” she told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. “So the mass rallies will mostly be about consolidating and ensuring that supporters actually go out and vote on April 17.”

She said the rallies also served as a “primitive” way to show off how many supporters each ticket could mobilize.

Jakarta-based pollster Populi Center director Usep S. Ahyar agreed, saying that the number of people who attended the rallies was important.

“Voters are affected by the bandwagon effect,” he told the Post. “If they see a lot of people attending a rally for a certain candidate, they may be emboldened or even think twice about who they support.”

Both Sri and Usep said it would be difficult, but not impossible, for Prabowo to use the campaign’s last stretch to overturn the gap between him and Jokowi, which the most recent polls have put at between 11 and 20 percentage points.

“The important thing is how to get supporters to go to the polling stations on voting day. Right now, surveys are just showing what people’s preferences are. The rallies should focus on turning those preferences into real votes,” Sri said. (mai)

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