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How music failed to move the needle in 2019 elections
With the electorate already polarized and fake news playing a crucial role in driving voters to the voting booth, music was relegated to mere background noise.
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo greets supporters during the last open campaign at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta during the April elections. (JP/Seto Wardhana.)
M
usic loomed large in the 2014 presidential election. In the run-up to the election, metalheads the world over waited with bated breath to see if Indonesia would finally have one of their kind sitting as President.
Then-Jakarta governor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has long been an avowed fan of metal who frequently professes his love for Metallica, Lamb of God and Anthrax. And when Jokowi won the election, big names in metal promptly expressed their joy that a metalhead could occupy the highest office in the world's third-largest democracy.
'Incredibly, ladies and gentlemen, the new president of Indonesia is a metalhead and a Lamb of God fan. Yes he digs Napalm Death, Metallica, Megadeth and Lamb of God among others. Holy c#*p! The world's first heavy metal president,' lead singer of Lamb of God Randy Blythe said in his Instagram post hours after Jokowi declared victory in July 2014.
Shortly before balloting day in July 2014, when a number of pollsters found that Jokowi was neck-and-neck with his rival Prabowo Subianto, music played a crucial role in helping Jokowi in his final push to victory.
Many have also attributed a massive turnout among metalheads in the country, who had long been considered as apathetic toward politics, as contributing to Jokowi's victory.
The large gathering organized by musicians at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium was able to project an image of Jokowi as a cool political candidate whose taste in music could relate to the country's youthful population.
This time it was different. With the electorate already polarized and fake news playing a crucial role in driving voters to the voting booth, music was relegated to mere background noise.
