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May 22 riots cause fear among citizens: Survey
While people think the riots did not affect overall economic and legal conditions, the survey finds that more people now perceive the country’s political condition to be worsening.
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Police fire tear gas at protesters during a riot near the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) in Jakarta on May 22. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
T
he public has become more cautious about exercising their freedom of speech and joining organizations as a result of the postelection riots that occured from May 21 to 23 in Jakarta, the results of a recent survey suggest.
The survey was conducted by Jakarta-based pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) and included 1,078 people aged 17 and above across the country. It was carried out from May 20 to June 1 -- before and after the rally protesting the 2019 presidential election result, which resulted in violence and rioting between the evening of May 21 and the early hours of May 23.
The pollster found in the survey that since the riots took place, more people believed that their democratic liberty was threatened.
While the survey recorded that most people -- 51 percent -- thought that members of the public were already afraid to talk about political matters to each other before the riots, around 43 percent of them thought people were now even more scared to talk about such matters. The number has increased from 17 percent in 2014.
The same went for respondents’ opinions on fear of extrajudicial violence by law enforcers. About 38 percent of respondents believed that people were more afraid of violent acts conducted by law enforcement officers after the May riots -- increasing from 24 percent compared to five years prior.
More people also believed that members of the public nowadays were more afraid to join an organization -- rising from 10 percent in 2014 to 21 percent after the riots -- as well as practicing their religion, as perceived by 25 percent of respondents in June.
On the other hand, most respondents -- 66 percent -- felt they were still satisfied with the democratic system despite all that had happened recently. The number, however, was slightly down from 74 percent in April.
