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Religion, human rights shape race in eastern Indonesia
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The eastern provinces of West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, North Maluku, Maluku, West Papua and Papua are home to 13.4 million registered voters, making up about 7 percent of the electorate. (JP/Jonathan Pownall)
W
ith the presidential candidates mostly concentrating on the much more populous islands of Java and Sumatra, not much change is expected in the more remote eastern parts of Indonesia.
The eastern provinces of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), North Maluku, Maluku, West Papua, and Papua are home to 13.4 million registered voters, making up about 7 percent of the electorate.
Majority Muslim NTB and North Maluku were among the 10 provinces that Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto won in the 2014 elections, while Maluku was a close-run race in which President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo garnered 50.5 percent of the votes compared to Prabowo’s 49.5.
In predominantly Christian NTT, West Papua and Papua, Jokowi won landslide victories, garnering well over 60 percent of the vote in the provinces.
In NTB, with the support of popular former governor Zainul Majdi, also known as Tuan Guru Bajang (TGB), Jokowi is expected to improve on the paltry 27.5 percent of the vote he got in 2014.
TGB, a respected Muslim scholar and head of NTB's largest Islamic group Nahdlatul Wathan, supported Prabowo's 2014 presidential bid, but has since switched sides, publicly backing Jokowi in July 2018.
Mataram Islamic State University (UIN) political observer Agus said that the NTB electoral map had shifted significantly between 2014 and 2019.
