Netray Monitoring: The Issue Of Kaesang Pangarep Maju Mayor Of Depok Only Makes Social Media Shock

The billboard of Kaesang Pangarep on Jalan Margonda Raya, Depok. (Doc. DPD PSI Depok)

JAKARTA The news of President Jokowi's youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep who wants to enter politics is not surprising. This wish was implied long before his name was predicted to be a candidate for Mayor of Depok.

Moreover, his brother Gibran Rakabuming and his brother-in-law Bobby Nasution had already jumped in and were successfully elected regional heads. Gibran as mayor of Solo and Bobby as Mayor of Medan.

The Ganjar Pranowo (GP) Center volunteers then echoed it on social media. This desire has finally become a hot topic of conversation among the public.

Kian was widely involved when the Regional Leadership Council of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) installed a photo billboard of Kaesang wearing a white shirt while holding a set of red roses on his right hand which read, 'PSI Wins, Mayor of Kaesang'. This large billboard is plastered on Jalan Margonda Raya, Depok.

Netray Media Monitoring found 5,388 tweets using the word "keykaesang&depok" during the period 1-7 June 2023. The intensity of the conversation slowly increased until it finally peaked on June 6, 2023.

The volume of this conversation was observed to be quite high. Netray managed to collect at least 2 million impressions of twitter with keywords, both in the form of reply, retweets, and favorites. Potential conversations can reach up to 83.3 million Indonesian-language Twitter accounts," Netray wrote in its report on June 9, 2023.

On June 1, uploads with negative sentiment were observed to decorate the conversation. However, conditions turned around a day, tweets began to appear with positive sentiment and continued to dominate until the last day of monitoring.

The negative sentiment of Kaesang's issue of advancing in the election of the mayor of Depok started from the Twitter account @geloraco. The tweet contains a statement by the Deputy Chairman of the Syuro Council of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) Hidayat Nur Wahid that his party is not interested in carrying President Joko Widodo's youngest son because he is not Depok and has no experience in Depok.

Hidayat assessed that Kaesang was more appropriate to advance in Solo or the surrounding area. He could replace Gibran, who is reportedly going to run in the Provincial Election.

The statement received a lot of reactions. Soon the opposite narrative began to emerge. Among other things, via Twitter account @adearmando61. Social media activists and academics who have now become PSI cadres expressed their support for Kaesang.

"This afternoon I was invited to be a speaker at a discussion to support Kaesang as a candidate for Mayor of Depok. As a supporter of the emergence of young leaders who are smart, clean, with integrity, I support Kaesang," wrote Ade Armando on his Twitter account on June 1, 2023.

PSI's position as an actor who also raised this issue also received appreciation. PSI is said to have no problem if it loses or wins as a party, but Kaesang must be the Mayor of Depok, as written by the @FaGtng account.

"PSI is like capturing the plurality of the Depok community which is represented by Twitter activists for the leadership of regional heads who come from PKS. The counter narrative thrown by PKS, for example related to Kaesang's achievements, has actually turned around," said Netray.

Twitter activists like @ Aryprasetyo85 have questioned the track record of PKS cadres who are also not clear of cases, such as corruption and others.

PKS figure, Tifatul Sembiring sparked a debate through a tweet that called PSI an emotional party when voicing support for Kaesang on June 2, 2023. The accounts @ch_chotimah2 and @sigitwid replied to this conversation through different narratives.

The influencer @ch_chotimah2 actually sees the situation even more exciting when PKS looks panicked while PSI and volunteers are getting faster to support Kaesang. As seen in a tweet written by party member @sigitwid that Depok was destroyed for 20 years because of the PKS government. Kaesang's leadership is expected to bring change.

The issue of Kaesang's progress seems to be still being considered as political speculation. Although busy on Twitter's timeline, it turns out that not many mass media reviewed it. Netray only found 287 articles written by 66 online mass media portals during the same period.

The point of view is quite different from the conversation on Twitter. According to Netray, online media was observed to highlight more relationships between Kaesang, PSI, and PDIP.

PDIP felt uncomfortable when PSI seemed to encourage Kaesang as a candidate for mayor instead of proposing his own cadre. In fact, a political observer from Al Azhar University, Ujang Komaruddin, assessed that PSI's support for Kaesang could be limited to a campaign strategy to attract young voters in Depok.

Because it is undeniable that the population of Depok city is 20-44 years old, according to data from the Depok City Central Statistics Agency in 2022, it will reach 864,265 or around 40.7 percent of the total population of Depok City.

Moreover, Kaesang's position later if it turns out that he will run as a candidate for Mayor of Depok will not be as strong as when Jokowi is still president. Moreover, he did not have a historical close relationship with Depok residents.

Gibran also admitted that Kaesang did not deserve to run in the election for the mayor of Depok.

"That's right, that's the suggestion of PKS. I agree with PKS. Yes, it's only logical because it's not Depok people. Except for Kaesang since childhood living in Depok, studying in Depok, yes, that's good," said Gibran.