Lost Ethics Must Be Returned For The Sake Of A More Dignityable Debate Forum

Gibran Rakabuming Raka's reaction while listening to Mahfud MD expressed his views on the Fourth Debate of Vice Presidential Candidates at JCC Senayan, Jakarta, Sunday (21/1/2024). (Between/M Risyal Hidayat/rwa)

JAKARTA Mahfud MD talked about Gibran Rakabuming Raka's attitude in the debate for vice president candidates, Sunday (22/1/2024). In the final debate for the Vice President, Gibran repeatedly issued a gimmick that was considered unethical.

Gibran again caught the attention after the debate with the theme 'Resilient Development, Natural Resources, Environment, Energy, Food, Agrarian, Indigenous Peoples, and Villages' which was held at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC). Not the substance of the debate, but the majority of the public actually highlighted Prabowo Subianto's vice presidential action, which was judged mostly to be a gimmick.

Mahfud MD even suspected that Gibran had been deliberately trained to embarrass himself by showing him his twisted gestures.

"Jadi Mas Gibran tuh, Mas Gibran itu dilatikan agar ini-gini (celingak-celinguk) agar memalukan, ujar Mahfud dalam acara Tabrak Prof! Semarang, Selasa (23/1/2024).

"I want to embarrass you, I'll embarrass you back," he said.

The moment of Gibran's twists and turns stems from questions related to greenflation. "How to overcome the greenflation? Thank you," said Gibran briefly.

Although the moderator said that the use of foreign terms or terminology must be explained, Gibran actually mentioned Mahfud, who is a professor, so according to him, he did not need further explanation.

"Greenflation is green inflation, as simple as that," said the eldest son of President Joko Widodo.

Mahfud MD then answered Gibran's question, but according to the Mayor of Surakarta the answer was not right. At that moment, Gibran made a move as if he was looking for something. Sambal attaches his right hand above his eye, Gibran lowers his clingak-celinguk sambal body.

This gesture then caused a polemic. Gibran, as the youngest vice presidential candidate in the 2024 presidential election, is considered not to heed the ethics of respecting older people. Even though as a candidate for leader, Gibran should show polite manners because what a leader or public figure does, has the potential to be imitated by his followers.

Senior psychologist Tika Bisono said, Gibran does not show the ethics that a leader should show. Psychologically, said Tika, what a child does is a reflection of parental education.

"In psychology, whatever behavior the child has is a reflection of his parents. He is far from the age of other vice presidents, he should be an element of appropriateness, ethics, politeness, elements of mutual respect should occur on the debate stage," said Tika when contacted by VOI.

"Disadolence in the debate damages the quality of the debate itself, we are not shown intellectuality," he added.

Tika regretted that the game took place on the stage of the Cawapres debate which was witnessed by millions of pairs of eyes. According to him, Gibran's inconsistency game shows that he is not yet worthy of being the leader of the nation.

However, on the same occasion, Tika emphasized that what Cawapres number two did was not a reflection of young Indonesians as a whole, even though Gibran was referred to as a representation of the millennial generation and Z.

After the debate on the second presidential candidate on January 7, 2024, Jokowi requested that the 2024 presidential election debate format be evaluated. According to his observations, the debate at that time was not educational because many attacks were personal.

Jokowi assessed that attacking attacks in debate were a natural thing during that time around policies or visions, not individuals. According to him, debates containing personal attacks do not provide education to the public and even obscure the idea of candidate pairs.

Jokowi's opinion could not be separated from the incident when Prabowo Subianto was involved in an argument with Anies Baswedan several times. They got into a heated debate that Ganjar Pranowo felt he was the one who cooled the atmosphere.

According to Executive Director of the Voxpol Center Research and Consulting Pangi Syarwi Chaniago, Jokowi's criticism of the debate format was actually restrained by his own son, and this is a very ironic paradox.

"Debats should focus on content and substance rather than just guessing the term or foreign abbreviation which tends to undermine the dignity of the presidential and vice presidential debate itself," Pangi said, commenting on the question of Greenflation raised by Gibran.

President Jokowi emphasized that personal attacks should not occur, but this was actually done by his own son who used demeaning words," Pangi added.

Furthermore, he hopes to restore lost ethics in a debate forum that should be more dignified.