Famous For Nationalism, The Ganjar-Airlangga Duet Is Considered To Be Acceptable Of Islamic Mass Bases For The 2024 Presidential Election

Ganjar Pranowo and Airlangga Hartarto. (doc econ.go.id)

JAKARTA - The United Indonesia Coalition (KIB) stated that it would carry a pair of presidential and vice presidential candidates in the final round. Until last night's KIB meeting, there were no names left behind from Golkar, PAN and PPP. Recently, the discourse on the nomination of Ganjar Pranowo and Airlangga Hartarto by KIB was based on positive results from a number of surveys if the two were paired. However, this pair is considered less representative of Muslim votes. Public communication and political marketing experts from Gadjah Mada University (UGM) Nyarwi Ahmad highlighted this. According to him, the Ganjar-Airlangga pair who are seen as too inclined to represent nationalist groups also represent the voice of Muslim mass.

"In my opinion, figures like Pak Ganjar, Pak Airlangga, can be seen from both party representations whose ideological identities are nationalist, but if we look at them, it can't be in that category," said Nyarwi in Jakarta, Friday, October 21.

Because of the fact, continued Nyarwi, almost all parties with nationalist nuances also have a direction to accommodate Islamic groups by forming wing organizations.

"Positive parties, even nationalist parties, have tried since the New Order to represent the Islamic community, so that almost every party has Islamic wings. Only often this is not seen as a form of representation of Muslims," he said.

The Executive Director of Indonesian Presidential Studies (IPS) also underlined that presidential and vice presidential candidates promoted in the presidential election do not have to represent certain groups.

"Actually, there is no provision in the history of the republic that presidential and vice-presidential candidates must represent groups, nationalist and Islamic party categories, there is none," he said.

"But there is a kind of national consensus that the average figure profile is not only a nationalist category, because also because the majority of Muslim voters usually have the appropriateness of figures representing Islam. That is considered important," added Nyarwi.

Therefore, according to Nyarwi, the discourse on installing Ganjar Pranowo and Airlangga Hartarto did not have serious obstacles. According to him, there is no credible research that shows the resistance or rejection of Islamic voters against the two figures.

"I don't think there are any obstacles. There is also no data on research that is very credible, which shows that there are voters from Muslim circles whose resistance is high or they both receive high resistance from Muslim voters. Including no, for example, forms of policies that have been carried out by both of them during their career in politics that can show policies that harm Muslims," he explained.

However, Nyarwi added, the nomination of the Ganjar-Airlangga pair will face problems when issues arise in campaigns that lead to religious-based polarity. Muslim voters want more Islamic presidential and vice presidential candidates, not just Islam.

"This means that Ganjar's chances, as well as Airlangga's acceptance among Muslims, are still very large. Except for later in the campaign period, for example, there will be issues that lead to polarization because the demands of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates are increasingly Islamic. This is back again to who is the competitor," he said.

Previously, the General Chairperson of the Golkar Party DPP Airlangga Hartarto explained the reason why KIB was not in a hurry to determine the presidential candidate because he did not want to buy a cat in a sack.

"KIB doesn't want to buy a cat in a sack. The problem is if there is a cat, thank God, if not? That's the problem," he said during a presentation on the vision and mission of KIB, in Kemayoran, Jakarta, Thursday, October 20.

The Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs also assessed that the echoing of the presidential candidate in the midst of global uncertainty would be counterproductive. He said that, what was more important than that, actually solving these challenges.

"KIB respects the President, there will be gravel in his shoes, if too many presidential candidates are announced (announced) before the time because we are facing the challenge of high uncertainty," he said.

"It's not time to have different opinions on things that haven't been the time, this is going to be unproductive," Airlangga added.