MANY pundits have predicted that the race to become the next governor of Jakarta will be an especially nasty one, fraught with racial and religious discord. It began harmoniously enough on September 24th, the day after the deadline to register as a candidate, with all three contenders and their running mates smiling and laughing as they posed together for a photo. But the front-runner, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known to all as Ahok, is both Christian and of Chinese descent—both rarities in an overwhelmingly Muslim, Malay country. How voters will respond is anyone’s guess.
Ahok is already governor (in effect, mayor) of Indonesia’s teeming capital, a city of about 10m people. He had been deputy governor, but won an automatic promotion when his predecessor, Joko Widodo, stood down to run for president in 2014. That means he has only faced the voters as the running mate of Jokowi, as the president is known, during the previous election for governor, in 2012—never at the head of a ticket.
As recently as 1998 hundreds of ethnic Chinese were raped and killed in riots in Jakarta. Christians have been the victims of...Continue reading
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