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Jakarta's outgoing Governor Ahok may escape jail for 'blasphemy'
Sydney Morning Herald - April 20, 2017
A day after Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama was decisively defeated in a bitterly sectarian gubernatorial election by former education minister Anies Baswedan, he was forced to front the blasphemy trial that derailed his electability.
Protesters outside the court erupted angrily when they learnt Ahok could escape prison for telling fishermen they had been deceived into not voting for him by his political opponents.
Prior to the alleged blasphemy, some Islamic groups had urged voters not to re-elect Ahok, citing verse 51 from the fifth sura or chapter of the Koran, al-Maida, which some interpret as prohibiting Muslims from living under the leadership of a non-Muslim
The provocative comments were opportunistically seized upon by Ahok's opponents and mass rallies that threatened the political stability of Jakarta were staged – spearheaded by radical Islamists – demanding that Ahok be incarcerated and even lynched.
Ahok, who assumed the role of governor in 2014 when Joko Widodo was elected president, had been considered a shoo-in to win the gubernatorial elections until his slip up last September. Initial polls reflected wide support for his effective governance of the city and can-do attitude.
This was acknowledged by the prosecutors who said their sentencing request reflected that Ahok had been involved in the development of the city.
The maximum jail sentence for article 156 of the blasphemy act is four years' jail but prosecutors requested he be given two years on probation with a one year jail sentence if he reoffended. They said Ahok had created uneasiness in the community and his comments caused "misunderstandings between groups in Indonesia".
An editorial in the Jakarta Post on the eve of the election described the campaign as "the dirtiest, most polarising and most divisive the nation has ever seen", saying the use of religion and race had been a "troubling aspect".
Analyst Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Sydney said the most successful and dangerous aspect of the anti-Ahok campaign had been the "reductionist and divisive rhetoric – that a vote for Ahok was a vote against Islam".
"Likewise the Jakarta election has been widely portrayed and analysed as an ideological battle between Islamic piety and pluralism. Policies and track record count for little," she said.
Ahok's lawyer, Wayan Sudirta, said the fact prosecutors only requested probation meant they were unsure of his guilt.
Mr Anies, who won about 58 per cent of the vote according to quick count surveys, had campaigned on education, no-deposit home loans, and opposition to Ahok's forced evictions for flood mitigation and reclamation of Jakarta Bay.
However he was also accused of a dog-whistle campaign that saw him courting extremist groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front, which had long called for Ahok to be ousted from power.
On the eve of the election, Mr Anies compared the gubernatorial election to the Battle of Badr in 624 CE, considered a turning point in the Prophet Muhammad's struggle to establish Islam and defeat his pagan opponents.
However both Mr Anies and Ahok called for unity after the election result, with Mr Anies pledging to be a good leader not just for Muslims and his voters but the whole of Jakarta.
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