Dirty Vote Alludes To The Four Finger Movement, How To Beat Prabowo-Gibran?

JAKARTA The four-finger greeting movement has been discussed on social media since a few weeks ago. This movement is said to corner the presidential candidate pair and vice presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka.

It is John Muhammad, an activist who serves as the National Presidium of the Indonesian Green Party, who pioneered the four-finger greeting movement. The essence of the four-finger greeting movement is to invite voters not to vote for candidate pair number two on February 14.

I represent a group of people who don't want 02 to win. So, there needs to be a coalition. Why are there four fingers? Because 01 plus 03. But four fingers also have meaning, we defend democracy," said John.

The phenomenon of this four-finger movement also appeared in the documentary Dirty Vote, which became a public conversation after airing on Sunday (11/2/2024).

Zainal Arifin Mochtar, one of the constitutional law experts who appeared at Dirty Vote, touched on the discourse of one round of elections and linked it to the four-finger greeting movement.

The discourse of one round of elections is indeed intensively echoed by candidate pair number two. According to a number of surveys, the Prabowo-Gibran pair are consistently in the top position, ahead of their two competitors, Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar and Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD.

Why candidate pair 02 is so aggressively echoing the one-round presidential election, according to a number of analysts this is done because there is a possibility that they will lose in the second round.

Zainal also explained, in political science and constitutional law, elections often give birth to the pro status quo dichotomy and pro changes. He gave an example of how in the 2017 DKI Jakarta Pilkada, the pair Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Saiful Hidayat actually lost in the second round even though they were ahead in various surveys and won the first round.

Screenshot of the film Dirty Vote, when constitutional law expert Zainal Arifin Mochtar explained the results of the survey before the 2017 DKI Jakarta Pilkada. (YouTube Dirty Vote)

"Even at the local level, it has occurred in the context of the DKI Jakarta Pilkada. Actually, the Ahok and Djarot pairs we know are also supported by President Jokowi at that time who always constantly win the top position," Zainal explained.

"But what happened was that the second round of things turned around because of the unity of the power of critics or the unity of forces against the top person," he added.

Zainal continued, in the second round the situation turned into an Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno's victory which won 58 percent of the vote, defeating Ahok-Djarot with 42 percent of the votes. According to Zainal, this situation occurred because of the unity of votes, namely the Anies and Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono-Sylviana Murni camp.

Furthermore, Zainal also mentioned the four-finger movement, which according to him the movement was a merger of Paslon 01 and 03.

"There is more that you have to remember that there is a four-finger movement that seems to be an offer, as if it is a symbol, that in the future in the presidential election this time is the merger of 01 and 03 strengths through a four-finger movement," said Zainal.

The Coalition 01 and 03 has actually been discussed some time ago. The Executive Director of the Nusantara Institute PolCom SRC (Political Communication Studies and Research Center), Andriadi Achmad admitted that it would be difficult to realize the collaboration between the Anies Coalition and the Ganjar Coalition in the second round against the Prabowo camp. This view is not without reason. History that PKS, the party that carries Anies, does not get along with PDIP, is one of the causes.

"It is difficult to imagine the creation of a coalition between PDIP and PKS, which in the history of politics at the national level never happened," Andriadi told VOI.

Nevertheless, he did not deny that in the world of politics there are no friends or eternal opponents, so the possibility of joining the Anies and Ganjar coalitions may still occur in the second round to tackle Paslon Prabowo-Gibran. The fact that PDIP and Joko Widodo are now no longer harmonious and PKS, which eventually united with PKB in the Coalition for Change, is evidence.

However, Andriadi provided conditions for the creation of the Anies and Ganjar Coalition in round two, namely the melting of Megawati Soekarnoputri and Surya Paloh's relationship.

"This means that the coalition between Anies' camp and Ganjar's camp will unite in the second round if Megawati and Surya Paloh agree. As we know recently PDIP and Nasdem have broken up partnerships," concluded the lecturer at Al Azhar University Indonesia.