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TikTok campaign season
In this era of social media, it seems that it is more beneficial for candidates to dive deep into the platforms to reach out and woo young voters.
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Visitors observe an exhibit about election history on Dec. 23, 2023, at the Bung Karno election education center in Blitar, East Java. The Blitar Elections Commission (KPU) aims to increase the voter turnout in the 2024 general election through public education on elections, including through the establishment of the education center. (Antara/Irfan Anshori)
We have seen TikTok become a potential battleground for the country’s 2024 presidential candidates, particularly in luring young voters.
On Friday, presidential candidate Anies Baswedan made his debut on the popular social media application. He hosted a live stream called “Temani Saya di Jalan” (accompany me on the road), which was watched by 300,000 viewers.
The former Jakarta governor went live on the app for the second time the next day and was watched by some 420,000 viewers.
Jumping on the bandwagon was Mahfud MD, the vice presidential candidate to Ganjar Pranowo, who made his debut on TikTok on New Year’s Eve, encouraging a more modestly sized audience to strive for personal improvement in the upcoming year of 2024.
The year-end performances would not be the last for each candidate, as Anies and Mahfud expressed their interest in continuing activities on TikTok as a strategy to reach out to more voters.
The two candidates' foray into TikTok seems like a response to the popularity of rivals Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka on the platform. While both candidates have yet to hold live streams on social media, several public polls show that the candidate pair is the most popular candidate on TikTok.
The high popularity of the Prabowo-Gibran pair might be partially due to memes that portray Prabowo as an endearing figure, using the Indonesian term of gemoy (adorable) to describe the former Army general. The video showing Prabowo dancing also often drew thousands of responses and positive comments from netizens.
In this era of social media, it seems that it is more beneficial for candidates to dive deep into the platforms to reach out and woo young voters, especially ahead of the 2024 election, in which the group comprises a slightly larger proportion of overall voters.
According to data from the General Elections Commission (KPU), around 52 percent of 204 million total registered voters are younger than 40. A third of all registered voters are millennials, or people born in the 1980s to late 1990s, while 22 percent belong to Generation Z, or those who were born after 1997.
Another survey by We Are Social, with results published in mid-2023, shows that eight in 10 people aged 18 or older are social media users. A user can also spend 29 hours per month on TikTok, according to the survey, making it the most popular social media platform in the country, only six minutes behind messaging application WhatsApp.
But the question remains: Will Indonesian candidates venture further into TikTok, which has been known for political disinformation, and can this help them win the 2024 election?
One example that could help us reach an answer might be found in our neighbor, the Philippines.
The Philippines saw the landslide victory of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the son of Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, in the 2022 presidential election. Observers saw that Bongbong’s foray into TikTok helped him secure the highest office.
During the campaign season, the Marcos family was often portrayed as “a political dynasty that brought Kennedy-esque glamor and global respect to the presidential palace,” as described by The Los Angeles Times. The late Ferdinand Marcos was known for his 14-year rule over the Philippines under martial law, in which he ordered the killings of thousands of political opponents.
But the TikTok campaign seems to have successfully altered the image of the family, with one voter quoted by the Times as saying, “We don’t believe the history books anymore. We have social media now.”
We still have roughly one month until voting day on Feb. 14, and until then, we should expect more live streams, dancing videos and other gimmicks from our presidential candidates to draw voter attention. They might seem trivial, but they can determine who leads the country for the next five years.
