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Canisius College alumni welcome Jokowi’s lead
Let’s celebrate: Senior politician Ginandjar Kartasasmita (second right), accompanied by Alumni Menteng 64 chairman Irlan Suud (center), Alumni Menteng 64 treasurer Dani Wanandi (right) and musician Ananda Sukarlan (left), slices a tumpeng (cone-shaped rice) after a press conference in Jakarta on Wednesday
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et’s celebrate: Senior politician Ginandjar Kartasasmita (second right), accompanied by Alumni Menteng 64 chairman Irlan Suud (center), Alumni Menteng 64 treasurer Dani Wanandi (right) and musician Ananda Sukarlan (left), slices a tumpeng (cone-shaped rice) after a press conference in Jakarta on Wednesday. The conference was held to celebrate the ongoing quick count updates, which gave President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Ma’ruf Amin the edge over challengers Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno in the presidential election.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
After months of canvassing during the presidential election campaign, prominent alumni of Canisius College in Jakarta grouped under the Alumni Menteng 64 flag welcomed the victory of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo based on the quick count results and have deployed volunteers to guard the C1 vote tally forms.
“We have a total of 1,000 volunteers deployed to 1,000 polling stations in Jakarta to monitor the real count. Currently they are still counting votes at the district level,” Irlan Suud, the head of the alumni committee, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The alumni group, which includes former minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita, Golkar Party chairman Airlangga Hartarto, former presidential spokesman Wimar Witoelar, Social Affairs Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, scholar Harijono Djojodiharjo, former minister Akbar Tanjung and senior businessman Sofjan Wanandi, said the group would not claim victory before the General Elections Commission (KPU) revealed the official final tally on May 22.
However, they said the quick count results were something to be grateful for.
Irlan said that on election day, the volunteers assigned to monitor the polling stations had found a number of alleged violations by rival camps, mostly in the form of intimidating voters who were about to cast their ballots.
“We gathered reports from our volunteers in the form of pictures. We reported some of them to the Jokowi campaign team, some to the National Police,” Irlan said.
In February, the alumni group declared support for Jokowi and his running mate Ma’ruf Amin at an event that was attended by senior members of the Jokowi campaign team such as Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto and a number of alumni from other Jakarta schools, such as Pangudi Luhur, SMA 7 state high school, SMA 3 state high school, De Britto College and SMA 6 state high school.
Ginandjar lamented the move made by the Prabowo Subianto camp which prematurely declared victory, even before the KPU had finalized the recapitulation process.
Around 12 quick count results have put Jokowi at around 54 percent against the Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno ticket’s 45 percent. However, Prabowo has declared himself and Sandiaga president and vice president elect, citing an internal “real count” which suggests that they won 64 percent of the vote.
Prabowo accused the pollsters of being partisan, telling their supporters to dismiss the numbers announced by the pollsters.
The Prabowo camp refused to reveal data regarding its internal real count process.
“[The Prabowo camp] has denied the pollsters. They also declared victory while the real count has not even been completed yet. [I’ve never seen] a presidential candidate claim victory before the final vote tally is released,” Ginandjar said.
Another alumnus, Dani Wanandi, said the 2019 presidential election was even more challenging for Jokowi compared to 2014 following the blasphemy case that sent his close aide former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama to prison for two years.
Ahok lost the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election despite previously gaining a 70 percent approval rating, following a series of rallies mobilized by Islamist forces to demand Ahok’s prosecution.
“We knew that the Ahok effect put us at a disadvantage. So we had to fight harder till the end. Thank God, based on the quick count results, we’ve won. We did well,” Dani said.
He added that the volunteers from the alumni group tried their best to campaign for Jokowi particularly in South and East Jakarta, the area deemed a stronghold of Prabowo-Sandiaga supporters.
Another alumnus, Ananda Sukarlan, who currently resides in Spain, said that Jokowi decisively won the election in most polling stations abroad with more than 80 percent.
“Because we [Indonesians living] abroad were not really exposed to hoaxes and fake news [about Jokowi]. Here, Jokowi lost [in several areas] because of the hoaxes,” Ananda said.
