So-called “buzzers” – semi-anonymous online trolls – played the infamous communism card against the PDI-P after the party proposed a bill that would regulate Pancasila and create an agency to interpret the ideology.

On June 24, protesters at a rally organized by the 212 Alumni Brotherhood (PA 212) burned the PDI-P’s flag on the street in front of the House of Representatives in Jakarta. They had assembled to protest the Pancasila ideological guidelines bill, alleging that it would open the door to communism in the country.

The group was founded by some of the protesters who opposed former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who is now a PDI-P politician.

PDI-P members throughout the country reported the incident to the police. But not long after, in what appeared to be a coordinated attack, social media users spread rumors that the party was a communist instrument and was against Islam.

For example, Twitter user @SorotMata212 posted, “Yet again, the PDI-P has defended communism,” on June 28. On the same day, Twitter user @ChristWamena associated the PDI-P with the now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which supported the government of former president Sukarno, Megawati’s father. The user posted, “The people have objected to the Pancasila bill, but confusingly, the PDI-P has instead attacked the caliphate. It turns out that the PDI-P needs the PKI.”

Buzzers also made several anti-PDI-P hashtags popular, one of which was #PDIPinisiatorRUUHIP (the PDI-P is the initiator of the Pancasila bill). It trended on Indonesian Twitter on June 27.

The hashtag was initiated and promoted by Twitter user @K1ngPurw4, following Democratic Party lawmaker Herman Khaeron’s statement on June 26 that the PDI-P had initiated the Pancasila bill. The account, allegedly owned by a man named Arlex Long "Susanto" Wu, a supporter of the Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno ticket in the 2019 presidential race, has gained more than 43,000 followers since it joined Twitter in March 2020.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said such narratives were attacks targeting the party’s electability ahead of the 2024 legislative and presidential elections.

“There are parties that have affiliations to religion-based radical groups that are trying to crush us using propaganda about communism,” Hasto said. “It’s a political warm-up ahead of the 2024 legislative and presidential elections.”

Hasto did not discuss his assumption in detail, but he was sure that the parties in question were using the debate on the PDI-P proposal for the Pancasila bill as a political tool. When discussing the matter, Hasto cited one political party, the Democratic Party, as the only party that refused to respond to the PDI-P’s proposal of the bill at the House of Representatives.

“We welcome criticism and input for revision. Before the bill was formally agreed upon as a proposal of the House, we, as the initiator, made changes to the draft during the deliberation process following input from almost all political factions in the House except the Democratic Party,” he explained.

Democratic Party politicians have strongly criticized the proposal. Party patron Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono expressed his desire to voice his opinion on the Pancasila bill but ultimately declined to proceed to avoid allowing the country’s politics to get “more heated” on his Twitter account on June 23.

Benny Kabur Harman, a party lawmaker who has openly criticized the bill, denied that the party hired buzzers to attack the PDI-P. “It’s baseless,” he told the Post.

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