Various Responses To Netizens In Monitoring Netrays After Gibran Rakabuming Raka Cawapres Prabowo Subianto

The pair will be Presidential Candidate (Capres) Prabowo Subianto and Vice Presidential Candidate (Cawapres) Gibran Rakabuming Raka. (Between/HO-Relawan Prabowo)

JAKARTA The story of how Gibran Rakabuming Raka officially becomes a candidate for vice president Prabowo Subianto is still being discussed.

Gibran himself was finally announced as a companion to the presidential candidate from the Prabowo Subianto Advanced Indonesia Coalition (KIM) on Sunday night (22/10/2023). Whereas previously, the plan to announce the new Prabowo Vice Presidential Candidate would be made on Monday (23/10).

Three days later, or to be precise on Wednesday (25/10), Prabowo and Gibran officially registered with the General Elections Commission (KPU) to advance the 2024 presidential election contestation. It was the last day of registration for prospective presidential candidates to the KPU.

With this rapid series of actions,Netray observed how the public responded through netizens regarding the Prabowo-Gibran pair. Using the keywordprabowo&gibran during the period 22-25 October, 72.5 thousand uploads were found from approximately 23.7 thousand accounts discussing this topic.

Since the announcement of Gibran Rakabuming Raka as Prabowo's partner, the intensity of uploads related to the couple promoted by KIM has shown a significant increase. The peak occurred on October 23 with 21.5 thousand uploads that appeared on that day.

However, netizens' sentiments for this couple vary. When viewed from social media X, positive sentiment dominates when compared to negative sentiment. During the monitoring period, the upload had a positive tone of 22.1 thousand, while there were 17.7 thousand negative uploads.

Positive sentiment is of course colored by those who support Prabowo's decision to choose Gibran as a companion. Various supports were given by a number of political figures to the official account of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (@PSI_id) who uploaded statements of support through social media platform X.

Many netizens also uploaded support from the Golkar Party, PAN, and KIM. In addition, there is also support from the ulama, namely Habib Luthfi, who is believed to boost support for Prabowo-Gibran from the NU circles.

From among government circles, there is Luhut Pandjaitan who is also a Golkar cadre who openly said the Prabowo-Gibran pair was a symbol of hope for an advanced Indonesia.

But Gibran's discussion of running as Prabowo's vice presidential candidate was of course marked by negative sentiment as well. The upload came from netizens who were disappointed because Prabowo chose Gibran as his vice presidential candidate.

One of the figures who expressed disappointment was the cultural observer and PSI cadre Goenawan Mohamad in the @gm_gm account. Meanwhile, netizen @ruhulanakgaul doubts why PSI supports Prabowo-Gibran even though it is claimed to be an anti-corruption and anti-perturbation party.

The decision of the Constitutional Court (MK) which accommodates young leaders certainly needs to be appreciated. However, netizens considered the method used to pass Gibran Rakabuming Raka as Prabowo's companion was not good.

The Constitutional Court finally decided to allow candidates who are not yet 40 years old on condition that they have experience as state administrators to participate in the contestation.

In the aftermath, netizens are not sure whether President Joko Widodo will be neutral in the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election. Understandably, Gibran's father will still serve as president on voting day, namely on February 14, 2024.

In the midst of negative sentiments that led to Jokowi's family, the President again carried out a surprising maneuver. Jokowi suddenly invited three presidential candidates, namely Prabowo Subianto, Anies Baswedan, and Ganjar Pranowo to lunch at the Merdeka Palace on Monday (30/11).

A number of assumptions circulated in the community regarding the lunch that Jokowi had with his three potential successors. Most think this is Jokowi's way of reducing the dynastic political issues that he is accused of in the Constitutional Court's decision.

However, Jokowi is considered to have a statesman's attitude, as said by political observers from Al Azhar University Indonesia.

This is a form of statesman's attitude from Jokowi. He wants to avoid protracted polarization. He wants to show neutrality in the 2024 presidential election, so that this presidential election does not divide the nation. This is a classy political form and eliminates arrogance," Andriadi told VOI.

On the other hand, Executive Director of the Voxpol Center Pangi Syarwi Chaniago considers Jokowi's lunch session with three prospective presidential candidates just agimmick. He invited the public not to be lulled into the dining table politics carried out by the former Surakarta Mayor.

Is everything finished after eating? That's just the second stage. There will be the next stage. This is Jokowi's way to calm public emotions because he is currently in a state of urgency. So, this is Jokowi's gimmick," said Pangi.

He assessed that Jokowi's statement which promised to be neutral in the 2024 presidential election was difficult to keep considering that his own son will compete next year.

"What can be held by a politician or statesman is what he said. If for example what he said was not in accordance with his behavior, then we couldn't hold it," Pangi said in a statement.