Solo Pilkada Debate: Bajo to Gibran-Teguh "You Are a Council, It Is Funny To Talk Different From The

Candidate pairs in the Solo Pilkada

SOLO - The pair of candidates for mayor-vice mayor of Solo from the independent route, Bagyo Wahyono-F.X. Supardjo (Bajo), questioned the statement of candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka-Teguh Prakosa regarding the handling and prevention of radicalism. Teguh Prakosa's statement called Bajo contradicts the facts in the city of Surakarta.

"This is a fact. There is a lot of friction in Solo. Even people today are very sad about the existence of mass organizations, as we have seen so far. The friction between mass organizations or between communities in Solo is terrible,” said Bagyo in the debate, December 3.

The people of Surakarta, called Bajo, are restless with the emergence of acts of intolerance, which disturb the harmony between religious communities.

"While you are a member of the board. What is your response? It is funny to be able to talk like that. But the fact is that Solo is still a lot of precarious. There are protests and so on. You are the term council. You should be able to reconcile it all," said Bagyo.

Bajo conveyed it in response to Teguh Prakosa's statement about religious harmony. In the previous Solo Pilkada debate, a taping video of Pastor Anton Karundeng from GKI Surakarta was played. It was about efforts to maintain religious harmony in Solo.

"To strengthen the Republic of Indonesia, the first Gibran-Teguh program is to make a religious harmony in the city of Surakarta. We must communicate. We will prioritize this cultural approach. So, we can reduce and eliminate the seeds of radicalism," said Teguh Prakosa.

According to him, early education has an important role in blocking the radicalism or intolerance.

"Elementary school, junior high. We need efforts to cultivate ideology, especially Pancasila, that we must do in the future. Then our communication with all religious, cultural, and public figures in Surakarta is important to build togetherness. How to solve it? So, the media in Surakarta, especially on social media, are not used arbitrarily," said Teguh.

Meanwhile, Gibran Rakabuming Raka said that religious harmony cannot be enforced. It must be cultivated from an early age as well as take a cultural approach.

"The thing called religious harmony, something that cannot be enforced, must be rooted in ourselves. If it is forced, it becomes false harmony and becomes a time bomb. We need to multiply the cultural approach, Sir. Now in almost all gamelan villages, in the future, we want young people to actively play the gamelan. So they have a rooted identity, strong and proud of the culture of Solo City. That will reduce ugliness and intolerance in Solo,” said Gibran, who is also the son of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).