Jakarta. The calm and collected start by former Army general Prabowo Subianto turned into a high-pitched, hoarse speech toward the end of the first televised debate of this year’s presidential election campaign, after Jusuf Kalla, the running mate to Joko Widodo, pressed the issue of Prabowo’s role in the abduction of pro-democracy activists in 1998.
Prabowo confidently answered the debate’s first question; he got to go first by moderator Zainal Arifin Mochtar, a lecturer at Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and anti-corruption activist.
When asked what the most important issues were in the context of the theme of Monday’s debate — “Development of Democracy, Clean Government and Legal Certainty” — Prabowo said smoothly — albeit in rather highfalutin words — that the people of Indonesia needed political education in order to create “constructive democracy” for the “prosperity and welfare” of the nation.
He stumbled a bit on the second question, on corruption and human rights, and began to unravel by the third question, which was on the high cost of Indonesia’s elections.
By the fourth segment of the debate — when the two tickets got a chance to ask each other questions — he seemed to lose his cool when Kalla tagged him over his role in the abductions and alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of student activists during the heady days of 1998, when he served as commander of the powerful Army Strategic Reserves.
“I know the direction [of your question]. You’re [accusing me] of not protecting human rights,” Prabowo said, his tone audibly higher and his usually mellow voice straining at a higher pitch. “You don’t understand, we [military members] were stationed in difficult places, and we often had to take actions to protect the Indonesian people at large.
“As a soldier, we did our duties as best as we could; it was our supervisors who appraised us. I’m the staunchest defender of human rights in this country!” Prabowo flared up as he ended his speech.
When Kalla kept pressing him on the issue — asking what the result of the appraisal was, in a jab at Prabowo’s dismissal from the armed forces — Prabowo only answered with, “We report to our supervisors. If you want to know the result of the appraisal, why don’t you ask my supervisor at that time.”
The armed forces commander back then was Wiranto, now the chairman of the People’s Conscience Party, or Hanura, and a supporter of Joko and Kalla.
If Kalla was the bee doing the stinging, Joko was the butterfly weaving through the jabs, reminding Prabowo that he’d failed to answer Kalla’s question — “How can a leader with a checkered human rights record be expected to uphold human rights?” — and pointing out that he had been “too passionate” in responding to the rights abuse allegation.
“Because of your too passionate response to the human rights answer, [you] haven’t given answers on concrete future plans [for human rights issues]. And also on discrimination, please pay more attention,” Joko said.
Not dressed for the part
Joko and Kalla were both dressed in black suits, white shirts and red ties, while Prabowo and his running mate, Hatta Rajasa, rocked a more casual look of white shirts with their trademark red Garuda logo and khaki pants.
But it was Joko and Kalla who appeared more relaxed and in general answered most of the questions quite smoothly; at the other end of the stage at the Balai Sarbini convention center in Jakarta, only Hatta remained collected throughout the two-hour debate broadcast live on TV.
Prior to the debate, the first of five, Prabowo was generally considered a good public speaker, known for his impassioned speeches offering substance, structure and clear platforms, which had long enchanted many of his supporters.
Joko, meanwhile, some observers have noted, is less blessed in the rhetoric department.
But while Prabowo stumbled through the debate, resorting to a rather heated speech in the second half of the evening, Joko surprised the audience with generally eloquent speeches, smoothly bringing up his various achievements from his stints as mayor of Solo, Central Java, and governor of Jakarta, as well as Kalla’s own renown for conflict resolution in Aceh and Poso, Central Sulawesi.
When answering the first question on the candidates’ main platform, for instance, Joko said his ticket offered concrete evidence for “system development” programs aimed at creating a clean government, with his introduction of a largely paperless bureaucracy after taking over Jakarta City Hall in 2012.
“Our ticket has proof: we’ve run e-budgeting, e-purchasing, e-catalogues, e-audits, online tax [payment system],” Joko said. “We can introduce this system to all regions if people give Jokowi and J.K. their mandate.
“Planning is crucial. But what is most important is implementation and management of evaluation. Our country is weak on evaluations.”
Prabowo and Hatta, despite the latter’s nearly 10 years in the cabinet of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, failed to use the opportunity to promote their ticket through mentions of previous achievements or even the highlights of their campaign platform, focusing strictly on the very questions thrown at them and responding to them mostly with conceptual rather non-committal answers.
The pair also a few times appeared to imitate the answers from Joko and Kalla, as on the issue of religious pluralism.
Joko said his defense of a Christian ward chief in Jakarta, amid opposition by Islamic hard-liners, was proof of his support for a pluralist Indonesia.
Prabowo said he was also a staunch supporter of a pluralist Indonesia, emphasizing that Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, a Chinese-Indonesian Christian, was from his Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra.
“It’s obvious and clear we nominated a person from a minority group, Ahok, as a deputy governor,” Prabowo said.
When responding to a question on the high cost of holding regional elections, Hatta, who commented after Joko, similarly said regional elections should be done simultaneously in order to reduce the amount of times people have to cast a vote, and suppress election costs.
Kalla, not done stinging, considered this too good an opportunity to miss: “Thank you, Pak Hatta. You agree [with us].”
Social phenomenon
The first televised debate ahead of Indonesia’s July 9 presidential election drew the interest of Indonesian voters, with many seeming to want to have their own says with comments, support or criticism on social media, mainly Twitter and Facebook.
The hashtag #debatcapres (presidential candidate debate) topped Indonesia’s trending topic on Twitter on Monday, followed by other debate-related hashtags. Kalla’s direct attack on Prabowo’s troubled past triggered quite many thumbs up.
Twitter user @harjon_pua, for instance, wrote: “J.K. sure knows how to push the right buttons when mentioning the opponent’s human rights violations.”
“Man of the match: J.K. Most favorite: Moderator,” wrote @monstreza.
The user @aosny2011, meanwhile, said, “Yes, Prabowo delivered a good closing statement #hitthespot.”
The second and third debates (on June 15 and June 22, respectively) will feature only the two presidential candidates, while the fourth, on June 29, will be between Hatta and Kalla. The fifth and final showdown, on July 5, four days before the election, will once again see all four men in a tag team match. The next debate will focus on the theme of “Economic Development and Social Welfare.”
With only two tickets contesting this year’s election, observers had warned of less lively debates than in 2009, when three tickets ran. But the hot topics of pluralism and human rights, which have been a sore spot for the Prabowo-Kalla camp thanks to Prabowo’s 1998 baggage and the presence of three Islamic parties in the coalition have served to spice up the race.
That Kalla would directly bring up Prabowo’s past should have come as little surprise, given the former vice president’s penchant for an outspoken and easygoing style, but Joko surprised the audience with his own jabs at his rival.
Hatta was criticized by some for being the most passive and wooden of the participants, but he seemed to complement Prabowo well on a number of points, including when the candidate was busy throwing counter arguments to answer questions addressed at them.
Monday’s televised debate was Joko’s and Hatta’s first, but Prabowo’s and Kalla’s second, when Prabowo appeared as the running mate of then presidential candidate Megawati Soekarnoputri and Kalla ran for the presidency with Wiranto in 2009 election, the first time that presidential election debates were broadcast live on TV in Indonesia.
So who was the winner of the first TV debate of Indonesia’s third direct presidential election? @ParodiHukum, a parody Twitter account, offered an impartial answer in a short tweet: “Expert: The winner of Tonight’s #debatcapres is the moderator! kwkwkwk.”
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/stinging-weaving-presidential-debate...
