Indonesian election candidate with bloody past popular on TikTok as “cute grandpa” | Abroad

LOOK. Favorite Indonesian elections popular on TikTok

Now 72, Prabowo is running to succeed current President Joko Widodo when the world’s third-largest democracy votes on February 14. He promises more stability and economic developments as the current president promoted during his time in power. Only his past is less attractive. As commander of the special forces under dictator Suharto, Prabowo is said to have allowed dire situations in the Asian country of East Timor in the 1980s. For example, in the late 1990s he ordered the kidnapping of more than 20 democracy activists, 13 of whom are still missing. As a result, he was banished from America and Australia for a time. Prabowo himself denies all accusations and wrongdoing.

In between the atrocities, he tried twice to become president of Indonesia, but has not yet succeeded. That is why Prabowo has undergone a transformation. Social media is full of videos of the presidential candidate dancing. The result is that young Internet users, who are mostly unaware of his past, seem to find the videos cute. And that’s no coincidence, more than half of Indonesia’s 204 million voters are millennials or younger, and Prabowo is now popular with them too thanks to social media. Nearly four-fifths of Indonesians have a smartphone, so politicians can reach people even in the most remote places of the inhabited islands.

Prabowo’s popularity on TikTok is also boosted by his opponent Gibran Rakabuming, the son of the current president. Among other things, he posts videos of young Indonesians pretending to talk to their future children. His most popular TikTok videos have been viewed more than 20 million times, rivaling Taylor Swift on an average day.

Indonesia has more TikTok users than any other country except America. A typical user scrolls 29 hours a month, according to The Economist, making it one of the most popular social media platforms in the country. It also makes politics more fun. Unlike X (formerly Twitter), which is used by people interested in the candidates’ policies. TikTok, on the other hand, is turning elections into memes, songs and dances, social media expert, Rustika Herlambang, tells ‘The Economist’.

TikTok has thus taken the appeal of personality over policy to another level. Another opponent, Ganjar, Pranowo, complains in ‘The Economist’ that young voters are not interested in his policies, but more interested in videos that go viral on social media. Anies Baswedan, the third presidential candidate, has widened his lead over Ganjar in the polls, thanks in part to a social media campaign appealing to Indonesia’s many K-pop fans

That’s why the Indonesian Election Monitoring Agency is working with TikTok to combat fake news and deception. Although this is difficult to control, because some people get paid to promote a politician online and bash his rivals. Of such social media hacks are known in Indonesia as buzzers and are reportedly used in all campaigns. A typical one buzzer is a young, educated man who runs up to hundreds of fake social media accounts, says Wija Wijayanto of Diponegoro University in Java, the country’s most populous island. The wages of one buzzer starts at a few hundred dollars per month but can be much more. According to TikTok, Prabowo’s campaign is estimated to have cost up to 30 times more than his rivals, and that’s a big advantage.

WATCH ALSO. This dog starts dancing when it sees its owner