The New Neo Order Stigma And Efforts To Discredit Political Enemy In The 2024 Presidential Election

The pair of the 2024 Pilres, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka greeted their supporters at the General Election Commission (KPU) Office, Jakarta, Wednesday (25/10/2023). (Between/Aprillio Akbar/tom)

JAKARTA - Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka's pair continued to receive scorn after being officially promoted by the Forward Indonesia Coalition (KIM) for the 2024 presidential election. Most recently, PDIP politicians have returned to attack the couple.

Not long ago, PDIP DPP Chairman Djarot Saiful Hidayat invited all cadres and political parties to continue to move to win the Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD pair and beat the Minister of Defense who had a duet with President Joko Widodo's eldest son.

Djarot claims the Prabowo-Gibran pair as a reflection of the Neo-Orde Baru.

"Keep moving, Ganjar-Mahfud Md ensures that we will continue to strengthen democracy. Together we face Prabowo-Gibran as a reflection of the Neo-New Order of the Today," said Djarot.

He continued, there is no place in Indonesia for people who have ambitions with power.

(Because) love for nephews, then the Constitutional Court was castrated, and democracy died. Now moral power is reborn. This is the most important foundation of Ganjar-Mahfud MD, firmly on moral truth and total dedication to the people, nation and state, not to the family," he said.

In simple terms, the New Order is the reign of President Suharto in Indonesia. As is known, Suharto's term of office lasted for 32 years, starting with a warrant issued on March 11, 1966 and ending in 1998.

In 1998 there was a large demonstration that resulted in riots in a number of regions in Indonesia. The New Order period under President Soeharto's leadership ended after his resignation on May 21, 1998, marking the birth of the reform period.

After more than two decades in the reform era, the term Neo Order Baru echoed again. In fact, this term began to appear during the 2019 Presidential Election.

This view arises because there is a resemblance to the policy character of the Jokowi government to the New Order era. One of them is the government's policy to prohibit State Civil Apparatus (ASN) from criticizing the government in public spaces.

Researcher and Deputy Director of Research at the Institute for Community Studies and Advocacy (ELSAM) Wahyudi Djafar said the regulation has the potential to cause achilling effect, namely ASN is afraid to express their opinion.

"In fact, criticism in the context of democracy is needed from anyone. Not only from the public, but even from internal state administrators," Wahyudi said on October 16, 2019.

Political observer Pangi Syarwi Chaniago said the characteristics of Neo New Order were indeed seen in the era of President Jokowi's leadership. The most obvious characteristics are how nepotism thrives in today's era. Not to mention the potential for the persecution of power or the use of power.

Jokowi was accused of taking advantage of his power when the Constitutional Court granted part of the lawsuit related to the age limit for presidential and vice presidential candidates.

From this decision, the Constitutional Court finally allowed someone under the age of 40 to run in the presidential and vice presidential candidates as long as he had or was serving as a regional head.

"The characteristics of nepotism are the existence of dynastic politics, non-neutral elections, nepotism thrives and there is the potential for abuse of power. Now there are no characteristics of that?" Pangi told VOI.

Furthermore, Pangi also mentioned the term of office of the president during the New Order. In the previous era, the presidential term was five years and could be re-elected after that, based on Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution.

However, based on the 1945 Constitution which was amended at the 1999 MPR General Session, the term of office of the President and Vice President can only serve for two terms of office.

Recently, the issue of Jokowi's desire to increase the presidential term to three terms has rolled back. Not to mention the discourse on the postponement of the 2024 General Election which has been widely discussed since last year.

These ideas are considered as an effort by the current government to extend its validity period. However, when these efforts failed, Jokowi finally raised Gibran as Prabowo's future vice presidential candidate to continue power.

"There is an effort to increase the term of office of the president, there is an effort to postpone the election but in fact all of this is not successful," Pangi added.

"Now, by carrying his son, Gibran, there is an impression as if the current president is still in power. The president wants to remain in power through his son and this is the last resort after the previous effort failed," said the man who also serves as Executive Director of the Voxpol Center.

Contacted separately, a political observer from Al Azhar University Indonesia, Andriadi Achmad, assessed that Neo Order Baru's idea to be heralded was nothing more than an attempt to discredit one of the couples.

This was done after Gibran was judged to have received a red carpet from the Constitutional Court's decision. However, Andriadi assessed that efforts to bring down rivals were common in the political year.

The claim about Neo New Order was issued because he wanted to discredit one of the contestants. This is actually a political operation that often even occurs in political years. Indeed, there are always efforts to corner one of the contestants," Andriadi told VOI.

"This is just an entrance to corner the Prabowo-Gibran pair, nothing more than that," said Andriadi.