Measuring the Effectiveness of Cak Imin's ‘Slepetan’ in the Vice Presidential Debate

JAKARTA - The term slepet among students can wake up those who are sleeping, move those who are sluggish, and at the same time remind those who are inattentive. That was one of the sentences uttered by the 2024 vice presidential (cawapres) candidate, Muhaimin Iskandar, during the first cawapres debate.

Slepet is a diction popularized by Cak Imin - Muhaimin Iskandar's nickname - to make it easier for people to understand the vision and mission offered by the Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar couple.

Moreover, the term slepet is not foreign among Islamic boarding school students like Cak Imin, perhaps even among Indonesian society, the majority of whom are Muslim and often wear sarongs when carrying out their worship.

This word slepet went viral when the video showing Anies was got slepeted by Cak Imin. The video was uploaded by Anies Baswedan's YouTube account, last October 23. In the video, Cak Imin explains the three functions of sarongs among students, one of which is to slip.

During the vice presidential debate, Friday, December 22, Cak Imin repeatedly uttered slepet diction. At least, Cak Imin uttered the word slepet 15 times in the debate which lasted for two hours.

Initially, Cak Imin said the word slepet when explaining his vision and mission. He explained that slepet is a sarong-snatching movement that is common among students to wake up those who are sleeping, move those who are sluggish, and at the same time remind those who are inattentive.

Therefore, if they are elected as the next president and vice president, Anies and Cak Imin will overlook various injustices that exist in Indonesia. "This is what is called slepet, being part of the authority to bring prosperity and justice," said Cak Imin.

He stated that his party wanted to bring about changes and improvements. Because, slepet is a disruption, and disruption itself is the beginning of a change. Cak Imin also used the word slepet when referring to the high prices of basic commodities and the small income of people who work in the informal sector.

“Today, expensive chilies, expensive eggs, expensive rice, expensive goods, evil middlemen and the mafia control and run rampant everywhere, even though the people are working, working, working. "We have to speed this up," he said.

In the closing statement session, Cak Imin again said the word slepet more than once. The PKB General Chair reiterated his and Anies' desire to eradicate injustice. “The sarong is a symbol of equality and justice. "The sarong is soft, but in the hands of a good person, it can become slippery due to injustice and fraud," he said.

In fact, Cak Imin created a new term based on the word slepet, namely "slepet-nomics," namely rules of play that are fair and pro-people in the economic sector which have been tested by experts and are based on inner experience and taste.

"With slepet-nomics, we ensure that Indonesia's economic development is carried out using the heart, using the brain. "Once again, Indonesia's development is carried out using the heart, using the brain," concluded Cak Imin.

Trapped in a witty narrative

So, is Cak Imin's "slepetan" in the vice presidential debate an effective step, especially to increase the electability of candidate number 1? Director of Trias Politika Strategic, Agung Baskoro, revealed that Cak Imin is the only vice presidential candidate who often makes witty dictions to introduce the vision and mission of the candidate pairs, starting from slepet, slepetnomics to KAMU (Kredit Anak Muda/Youth Credit).

He considered that the introduction of programs using humorous diction would make it easier for the public to understand the narrative of change brought by the Anies Baswedan-Cak Imin couple. "Technically, the witty words conveyed by Cak Min with slepet, slepetnomics, make it easier for us to understand the narrative of change brought by Cak Imin and Anies," said Agung.

On the other hand, Cak Imin also continues to criticize the current conditions and policies of the government which are considered not good, such as expensive basic necessities and the development of the Indonesian Capital City (IKN). According to Agung, criticism of the government is a narrative that Anies-Cak Imin repeatedly utters during debate moments.

“Continue to criticize because it is a narrative of change. Unfortunately, Cak Imin's criticism is less sharp and deep than Anies. "Apart from that, Cak Imin may still be trapped by humorous narratives so that the substance is less deep," he explained.

Meanwhile, quoted from the results of Continuum Indef research which analyzed public responses regarding the cawapres debate using a big data approach, Cak Imin became the figure most highlighted after the cawapres debate was held.

The Continuum Indef research data collection period was carried out on December 22, 2023 at 19.00 p.m. - 21.50 p.m. by collecting 23,424 conversations from 17,125 Twitter accounts. In this analysis, the peak of conversation occurred at around 20.00 p.m. Western Indonesisan Time (WIB).

As a result, netizens' conversations about the Anies and Cak Imin couple via the X platform (formerly Twitter) reached 13,300. This figure is far compared to other candidate pairs, where Prabowo-Gibran 4,800 and Ganjar-Mahfud 2,000.

Unfortunately, research results show that negative sentiment towards Anies-Cak Imin after the debate was very large, reaching 97.73 percent compared to positive sentiment which was only 4.27 percent. "The low level of positive sentiment from Cak Imin was caused by netizens assessing that his performance during the debate was poor, and this could reduce his electability with Anies," according to the analysis of Continuum Indef research results.

Apart from Continuum Indef, Indonesia Indicator (i2) also released research results of conversations on social media during the debate between 18.00-23.00 WIB on the day of the debate. According to Indonesia Indicator's Communications Director, Rustika Herlambang, netizen conversation interactions in the second debate were not as busy as the first edition of the presidential-vice presidential debate. If in the previous debate the conversation reached 56,964 posts with an engagement of 2,460,097, in this debate the conversation only managed to gain exposure of 35,222 posts with 1,603,740 engagements.

However, in terms of activeness, the number of netizen responses per post is slightly superior, with the ratio of one exposure achieving 46 engagements. Meanwhile, in the previous debate, one exposure only got 43 engagements.

Rustika explained that Gibran Rakabuming Raka's exposure reached 69,259 posts with engagement of 2,425,615. Meanwhile, Mahfud MD achieved exposure of 53,479 posts with engagement of 1,023,434 and Muhaimin Iskandar around 46,573 posts with 1,306,364 engagement.

Cak Imin himself, in the Indonesia Indicator research, in terms of sentiment percentage, received a relatively balanced portion between positive, negative and neutral. During the debate, Cak Imin often mentioned slepet as a jargon that was attached to him and the AMIN program.

There were 1,152 posts mentioning this jargon in Cak Imin's conversations and it was proven to be the term most frequently used by netizens. The most dominant emotion in Muhaimin's conversation was the emotion of trust at around 35 percent, followed by the emotion of anticipation at around 20 percent. Muhaimin was considered humble enough to say he didn't know about Gibran's question regarding SGIE (State of the Global Islamic Economy).

"Muhaimin Iskandar is considered a politician who is good at diplomacy, trying to get public attention with a narrative of change," said Rustika.