High anxiety in Jokowi camp

With two weeks left to campaign for the July 9 presidential election, Mr Joko Widodo is rushing to woo as many undecided voters as he can, amid an unrelenting wave of scurrilous attacks on him that has seen his ratings slide and made his campaign team anxious.

The Jakarta governor has had to forgo his trademark walkabouts where he meets residents door-to-door. Instead, he is adjusting his style to get local members of his Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle and coalition partners to help greet residents and talk to crowds at many stops before he himself shows up, often for no more than 20 minutes, before pushing off again.

Mr Joko, commonly known as Jokowi, and his running mate Jusuf Kalla have been on a punishing schedule criss-crossing the country to woo voters as the opinion polls show their opponents Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa fast closing in on them.

Their lead over their rivals has dropped sharply from a high of over 20 per cent in opinion polls three months ago to 10 per cent in late May. It fell further to 6 per cent to 7 per cent, according to polls out last week.

Mr Teten Masduki, a secretary of the Jokowi-Kalla campaign team, told The Straits Times the main factor for the ratings dip is a relentless spate of "black campaigns" - or false information spread through newspapers, on social media and by word of mouth.

"They do it because it is difficult to find Jokowi's weakness. They just make something up."

Rebutting these smears has become a constant theme in Mr Joko's stump speeches. The smears claim, among other things, that Mr Joko is Christian and his father is an Indonesian-born Chinese businessman from Singapore - both sensitive issues among the Muslim-majority electorate.

They have also made the Jokowi campaign appear reactive.

Fortunately, supporters have been helping out. Among them is motorcycle salesman Ahmad Fahruni, 33, who said more than a handful of his fellow villagers in Pagedan, West Java, have told him Mr Joko has a baptismal name. "But when I asked them what it was, no one could give an answer," he told The Straits Times.

Realising - if belatedly - that such supporters alone are not enough to counter these coordinated attacks, a volunteer has started a website (www.faktajokowi.com - Facts about Jokowi) to respond to attacks on the candidate's track record, similar to the Fight the Smears drive United States President Barack Obama's campaign team started in the 2008 election.

Mr Joko has also been pushing himself hard. On the first day of a four-day campaign trip to West and Central Java last Monday, he ended his day at 3am, before starting last Tuesday's visits at 7am.

Mr Joko explained that he had to meet a group of Muslim clerics in a remote area in Rengasdengklok, West Java, even though it was past midnight because he just could not disappoint them. "I had made a promise to visit them. I had to meet them at whatever hour, knowing that they had been waiting for me to show up since 5pm," he told a reporter.

Members of his entourage and reporters trailing him say the reception Mr Joko gets across Java remains warm, helped by his easygoing style of mixing with residents and his insistence on direct contact with them.

His campaign has managed to raise a war chest of 50 billion rupiah (S$5.2 million) in under a month, and people from all walks of life continue to chip in.

Campaign insiders say the slip in ratings has helped in a way, by pushing party workers, volunteers and supporters to work harder.

Mr Carta, 24, a fried tofu seller at a wet market in Kalijati, Subang regency, is among the many ordinary folk who do not care what others say about Mr Joko.

"Jokowi does not sell promises. He delivers work. This is all that matters," he said.

This article was first published on June 23, 2014.
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