The communist imaginary in Indonesia’s 2014 and 2019 presidential elections

ABSTRACT

This article investigates rumours of a communist resurgence as a recurring theme invoked in Indonesian politics. In both the 2014 and 2019 presidential contests, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) was accused of being a PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) adherent, and a false narrative that he was the ‘communists’ candidate’ persisted throughout the campaigns. Despite the PKI having been banned and effectively defunct since 1966, large amounts of political disinformation that centred on its rebirth and the threat from communists dominated media narratives. The attack was expanded to include many key figures, including political elites and Jokowi’s allies and sympathizers. Using interviews with elite individuals and documentary research, this article argues that the ‘communist imaginary’ was deployed by campaign managers in the elections through the exploitation of constant anxieties regarding perceived villains. Furthermore, it has also been used as an excuse for military, as well as paramilitary factions, to grab greater power within the electoral context, as evidenced by their aggressive speeches and actions. The rumour of a communist threat, I will argue, provides a simple, effective way to distract the public from actual electoral issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Indonesia
• communist
• election
• imaginary
• campaign
• Indonesian Communist Party

This paper explores the use of the so-called ‘communist imaginary’ in Indonesia’s 2014 and 2019 presidential contests. A large and growing body of Indonesian political literature indicates that the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections featured myriad forms of disinformation (Duile & Tamma, 2021; Hui, 2020; Mietzner, 2014, 2015; Tyson & Purnomo, 2017). These studies reported the polarized voters and the dominance of false narratives, which were targeted in particular at Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi), a former governor of Jakarta (2012–2014) and two-term president (2014–2024). As a popular and leading contender, Jokowi – a Javanese, a Muslim and a member of the nationalist party PDI-P – became the subject of numerous damaging rumours.

Jokowi’s political opponents disseminated fabrications about his persona through both offline and online media. According to Digimed (2014), the topic of Jokowi as a communist and adherent of the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia), a banned party since 1966, dominated the digital realm despite being wildly implausible. This trend persisted in 2019 when Fahmi (2019) identified two common types of disinformation: portraying Jokowi as a PKI sympathizer and questioning his Chinese descent. The General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) also found that ‘Jokowi PKI’ was the most prevalent accusation during the campaign (Siregar, 2019, p. 190).

These reports align with extensive research on the 2014 and 2019 elections. Tyson and Purnomo (2017) investigated the distribution of the partisan tabloid Obor Rakyat during the 2014 election, which targeted Muslim communities across Java and had the potential to tarnish Jokowi's image. This unregistered publication, with nearly five million copies distributed, cast doubt on Jokowi's ancestry by falsely accusing him of being the son of a PKI leader and Chinese-Indonesian citizen named Oey Hong Leong, instead of his actual father, Widjiatno Notomihardjo (Tempo, 2014). Other uncertified publications, such as Martabat tabloid and Sapujagat magazine, also spread unsubstantiated rumours about Jokowi's ancestry in different regions of the country. In the 2019 election context, Duile and Tamma (2021) also emphasized that the myriad falsehoods were reproduced, resulting in polarization and algorithmic enclaves on social media. The data demonstrated that a trend had evolved since the introduction of democratic elections with huge numbers of rumours regarding a communist threat, which created a puzzling picture of Indonesia’s democratic elections.

Further, what's particularly intriguing is Jokowi's strategic turnaround. After winning the election in 2014, he cleverly exploited the communist imaginary, transforming himself into an ardent anti-communist figure. This dramatic shift added complexity to the political landscape, demonstrating Jokowi's adeptness at manipulating the very disinformation that had once targeted him.

How influential an imaginary can be in political contests is understudied, but at least there are three significant pieces of research assessing the strength of the communist imaginary. The first, conducted by Tempo magazine in 1985, surveyed 900 respondents from Java and Sumatra. One-third of them viewed a communist resurgence as the most significant threat to Indonesia's unity, a perception likely influenced by the propaganda film Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI, which aired annually on the state-owned TV channel TVRI from 1966 to 1997 (Kurniawan et al., 2013). This film, written by retired general Nugroho Notosusanto, was based on official government documents and had a significant impact on citizens during the New Order era (Herlambang, 2013). It was, I noticed, the only survey that explored the communist imaginary’s effect on them during the New Order era.

A more recent poll in 2019 by SMRC revealed that the perception of communism as a ‘threat’ still persists, with communists being viewed as the third most disliked group in Indonesia, after ISIS and LGBT individuals (SMRC, 2019). While the communist and LGBT groups were many perceived as godless, ISIS represents a heretical view of Islam. The survey’s finding therefore indicates that Islam is largely used as significant checkpoint to define the so-called ‘threat’.

The second study, conducted by Putra et al. (2018), used a socio-psychological approach to explore the stigma attached to Indonesian communists. Over 443 university students participated in four experiments, which revealed that knowledge of PKI heritage led to prejudice in both political and educational contexts. Participants’ initially positive judgments of an expert were negatively influenced when they learned about the person's PKI heritage, particularly in the context of their potential as a presidential candidate.

A third study by Putra et al. (2019) involved in-depth interviews with Indonesian Muslims and reinforced previous findings. It highlighted that Indonesian Muslims generally perceive communists as ‘evil atheists’ and enemies of the nation. While this study had a limited sample size of twenty-three participants and was conducted in 2016, it shed light on the qualitative and psychological factors that influence Indonesian Muslims’ views on communism and past events. Most participants aligned with the official narrative, viewing the PKI as the mastermind behind the 1965 coup and a threat to the nation. Their sources of information included newspapers, televised PKI-related movies, history lessons in school, and societal narratives.

All three studies above have limitations. The Tempo study has not been updated yet to provide more recent and broader data (currently, it only covers Java and Sumatra). Besides, it was conducted under conditions of authoritarian rule which restricted critical research. Putra et al.’s studies are also limited, as they used only well-educated participants in the first (2018) and only Muslims in the second (2019). Regardless of their limitations, these three pieces of empirical research demonstrate that the impact of the communist imaginary on Indonesians has justified political efforts to exploit it.

Given the unresolved tensions around 1965 and the mass killings afterwards, this paper aims to unveil how these relatively polarized elections in 2014 and 2019 produced a renewed panic about communism. This article dives into the political imaginary as a theoretical base to comprehend how the ‘threats’ posed by communists are still used as a resource during the presidential contests. The political imaginary further guides the author to assess the strength of anti-communist history rooted in the authoritarian era. Moreover, the concept highlights the emotional dimensions of politics, particularly within the context of anti-communist politics in the twenty-first century. The ‘communist imaginary’ reveals how political narratives can evoke powerful emotions, such as fear or nostalgia, which play a profound role in shaping political attitudes (Vayeos, 2021). In contentious political environments, emotional narratives often hold more sway over public opinion than factual information. The data for this study were collected through interviews with campaign managers and sympathizers from the candidates’ camps, complemented by an analysis of various speeches and media reports.

The dual role of the communist imaginary in the 2014 and 2019 general elections becomes evident when we examine its evolution. Initially, it appeared to be primarily produced for electoral purposes, serving as a potent tool in the political arsenal to sway public opinion. However, a deeper analysis reveals that its significance extended beyond electoral campaigns; it also served as a vehicle for the Indonesian military to re-enter politics. This study emphasizes that while the communist imaginary was initially employed as a strategic tool by Prabowo to counter Jokowi during the elections, it also serves as a vehicle for the Indonesian military's ambition to re-enter politics. It demonstrates how the military has utilized the communist imaginary not only to sway public opinion during elections but also to assert its presence and influence in the political landscape.

This article is divided into four parts. First, I discuss the theory of the communist imaginary and anti-communist history. Second, I examine the employment of communism-related rumours throughout the 2014 and 2019 electoral campaigns. I then offer an analysis of the return of the authoritarian imaginary in Indonesian politics, before concluding that both camps extracted significant benefits from the repertoire of the communist imaginary and increased the role of the military within each camp.

Between the imaginary and anti-communist history

This article advances the idea of ‘the communist imaginary’ as a basic trope that has led to the creation of massive amounts of political disinformation. The term ‘communist imaginary’ describes what is imagined about communists and communism and captures the phenomenon of rumours or disinformations about communists’ revival, ‘communist candidate’, or PKI’s rebirth sparked by political actors during the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections.

Previously, the term ‘communist imaginary’ has been employed by scholars such as Roberts (2009) and Beaumont (2006). Roberts used this concept to illustrate how communist values can be envisioned in the realm of art, emphasizing their role in preserving ideals of equality and free exchange within artistic creations. Conversely, Beaumont framed the communist imaginary as a tool for propagandist efforts, fuelling anti-communist sentiments by amplifying fears of revolution. These scholars collectively reveal that the communist imaginary extends its influence beyond historical contexts like art, demonstrating its potential for manipulation in propaganda and fearmongering.

Expanding on this foundation, the concept of the communist imaginary is seamlessly integrated into the broader realm of the political imaginary. This concept, notably popularized by Anderson (1983), delves into the idea of an ‘imagined community’ within a nation. Similarly, Mills (2000) underscores the role of imagination in society to connect personal experiences with larger social and historical forces. Smith (1999) further advances this notion by linking the imaginary to the construction of national identity, portraying it as a tool that molds group identities and reinforces ideological cohesion within societies.

In his works, particularly in ‘The Arcades Project,’ Walter Benjamin extends our understanding of imagination. He portrays imagination not merely as an individual faculty but as a collective one (2002, p. 64). Furthermore, Benjamin introduces the concept of ‘dialectical images’ as a central component of imagination. These nonlinear representations capture moments of tension, contradiction, or rupture in history, culture, and society (2002, p. 462). Dialectical images challenge conventional historical narratives and lay bare the complexities and contradictions of the past. In this context, imagination becomes the ability to perceive and interpret these dialectical images, often involving a profound moment of recognition.

Critical theorists like Ernesto Laclau (1994) emphasize the pivotal role of hegemonic imagination in constructing new political and social identities. This underscores its capacity to shape political and social reality through the manipulation of symbols, narratives, and ideologies, a particularly relevant perspective in the context of contemporary politics. In summary, these various perspectives on imagination and the imaginary offer a multifaceted lens through which to understand and interpret complex political events and situations, both historical and contemporary.

Recognizing the ‘communist imaginary’ as a constituent part of the broader imaginary, rather than merely narratives or discourse, holds profound significance. This perspective becomes evident through several compelling reasons. Firstly, the communist imaginary transcends historical periods, persisting as deeply ingrained beliefs and perceptions that shape political attitudes over time. It isn't confined to specific narratives; instead, it endures as a complex interplay of emotions, symbols, and collective memories. Emotionally resonant, it can evoke powerful sentiments like fear or nostalgia, highlighting its potential for emotive politics in electoral spectrum. Importantly, imaginaries operate beyond rational discourse, often molding public opinion independently of evidence or reasoned argument. In today's political landscape, where emotional narratives often hold more sway than factual information, understanding the communist imaginary within the broader imaginary framework is therefore essential. Lastly, the contemporary relevance of the communist imaginary is undeniable, as it continues to impact electoral politics today, being manipulated for propaganda and fearmongering. Incorporating the communist imaginary into the current politics enriches our understanding of its enduring, emotional, and complex nature, shedding light on its role in shaping political beliefs and actions across historical and contemporary contexts.

In this sense, Indonesia’s anti-communist movement had an afterlife long beyond the violent suppression of the PKI in the mid-sixties: the movement was dedicated to maintaining the existence of an imagined communist threat that could be deployed for electoral and political purposes more than fifty years later. The communist imaginary first took root in 1965, when the army commander, General Suharto, accused the PKI of orchestrating a failed coup on 30 September 1965 and used this as a pretext for all-out war against alleged communists. Since PKI’s abortive coup, the Indonesian military demonized the party as a national threat and essentially obliterated it. The exact number of people killed between 1965 and 1967 is unknown. Early estimates of up to 80,000 victims have been superseded by estimates that as many as three million Indonesians were killed during the rampage (Suriyanto, 2015).¹ In addition, after unseating the first president Sukarno in 1966, Suharto’s authoritarian regime actively spread propaganda portraying Indonesian communists as immoral atheists and vicious traitors (Budiawan, 2004).

This enduring authoritarian propaganda has allowed the imaginary to be spectacularised, as per Chiara Bottici's concept, creating a realm where the distinction between reality and fiction blurs in everyday politics (Bottici, 2014, p. 155). The anti-communist historical narrative not only serves as a reservoir of memory and unity but also functions as a political tool for crafting fabricated stories or narratives blended with selected facts to contest and establish political legitimacy (Heller, 2005, p. 257).

This article contends that the fabrication of the communist resurgence in electoral contexts is both a spectacle of the communist threat, propagated during Suharto's regime, and a representation of unreal or fabricated events. In this light, the New Order's anti-communist propaganda not only legitimized the regime but also reshaped the entire political landscape. Heryanto (2006, p. 5) aptly termed the 1965 killings as the ‘master narrative’ of the New Order regime, providing a foundation for continuous physical and symbolic violence. Similarly, scholars like Goodfellow (1995), Siegel (1999), and Honna (1999) highlight the state's dominance and the instrumentalisation of the anti-communist narrative to suppress dissent and reinforce ideological hegemony. These works elucidate how anti-communism emerged from the New Order's longstanding dominance and its determination to subdue critical forces beyond the state. It was deployed to rekindle collective awareness of the defined ‘threat’, ‘enemy’, and ‘other’. This framework sets the stage for further research into how this historically rooted imaginary, shaped by deep ideologisation during the authoritarian era, endures in a vastly different context. Browne and Diehl (2019) lend support to this effort by examining collective actors and structures that organize the symbolism of politics and the institution-building process (Browne & Diehl, 2019, p. 394).

Therefore, to differentiate it from simple political disinformation, the communist imaginary involves many layers of historical and political culture in Indonesia and, based on its emergence in post-1965, is clearly orchestrated by the elites. It is not simply a schizophrenic rumour about the sudden presence of demonic communists; the so-called ‘threats’ are known as the truth which lays beneath the long-standing propaganda of the anti-communist movement in Indonesia. As a basis for disinformation – in the form of intentionally and verifiably false news whose goal is to mislead the public (Bharali & Goswami, 2018, p. 118) – and as a part of strategically designed propaganda to secure political gains (Ong et al., 2019, p. 7), the communist imaginary apparently has strong roots that entangle and influence the voting public.

The deep hatred directed at communists in several nations’ histories demonstrates that it is still a salient issue in the current political environment. Thailand recently faced a new wave of anti-communist rhetoric, reflecting its own political past. In his speech at the Royal Thai Army headquarters on 13 October 2019, army chief General Apirat Kongsompong openly accused ‘communist’ politicians and ‘extreme leftist’ scholars of organizing a conspiracy and stimulating information warfare, without providing any evidence (Wangkiat, 2019). This pattern had already been established earlier in Chile. It triggered anti-communist rhetoric that was widely used in political propaganda during the presidential and parliamentary elections in 1970 and 1973, accusing numerous contenders of having communist sympathies (Palacios, 2009, p. 115). A case in South Korea also has similarities, when the government and most political parties began using anti-communist rhetoric as a tool to prevent a ‘leftist uprising’ from occurring and referenced a previous uprising during the 1940s on Jeju Island (Kim, 2017).

These examples all share the same roots: anti-communist history enables political actors to deploy imaginary threats in contemporary contexts.

Furthermore, Gudkov (2016) identified a crucial stage of a ‘deep crisis’ within societies or countries. In Indonesia, the 1965 crisis posed a severe threat to people's existence and values, generating fear and prompting the use of collective values and symbols to unite society and prevent its collapse. In this extraordinary atmosphere, discussions on human rights, political accountability, or morality had minimal space. Within the context of the 1965 national crisis, Suharto's propaganda constantly highlighted the elusive threat of a communist resurgence, which was deemed essential for maintaining national stability. It compelled people to adhere to rules and moral values while emphasizing the nation's collective vulnerability to the ‘communist threat,’ effectively keeping them in a perpetual state of crisis. As argued by Heryanto (2006), the New Order regime further used the 1965 massacre as a foundation for consolidating its power, marking the event where the military regime gained legitimacy as a new political order. The extensive propaganda campaign about the communist threat was part of ‘state terrorism,’ wherein the regime terrorized the country using the spectre of communism as a latent threat. Given the limited challenges to their message during the New Order regime, this campaign had a profound impact, solidifying the image of menacing communists as a prevalent social and political theme. Moving to the 2014 and 2019 elections, the fear of communism instilled by Suharto continued to linger.

Fabricating imaginary through political disinformation

While visibly orchestrated disinformation has been mainly designed by elites, the imaginary deeply rooted in Indonesians’ collective memory has provided solid ground for further fabrications in electoral settings. It has also mobilized the dream of a leader who is strong enough to anticipate a communist revival and anxieties about being dragged back into the traumatic conflict caused by communism in the 1960s. An apocalyptic vision persists of an Indonesia ambushed once again by an always imminent communist coup.

This article saw the political disinformation as a potential tool to fabricate the imaginary, posing the electoral disinformation and all the manipulation through various mediums as a significant feature to re-strengthen the communist imaginary as well as to attack the political rivals. The excessive electoral manipulation could happen not only for the sake of winning the election or merely reaching victory threshold, but also to undermine a rival’s credibility, polarize voters, and strengthen disinformation that could led to illegitimate power.

Disinformation – intentionally and verifiably false news whose goal is to mislead the public in order to secure political gains – has become a global concern and persistent feature either in the mature democratic countries or developed ones (Bharali & Goswami, 2018, p. 118; Ong et al., 2019, p. 7). Similarly, Wardle and Derakshan (2017) define disinformation as information that is false and deliberately created to harm a person, social group, organization or country. Disinformation works across multiplatform media, to seed political messages to discrete groups of potentially manipulable voters. The role of political strategists, as well as their subordinates – such as digital influencers – is also vital in insinuating disinformation convincingly into the political agenda (Ong & Cabanes, 2018, 6).

This point reinforces the crucial position of political actors as the orchestrator of disinformation. This might be underlined as a classical perspective in the information and propaganda studies, which are centred on the individual level of producing falsehoods (Humprecht, 2019, p. 1975). However, the false and fabricated narrative of communists’ presence in Indonesia does not operate in a vacuum. Instead, those falsehoods are linked to the historical anti-communist imaginary involving collective actors and institutions and could not be simplified as individuality or state-centred matters.

The prevalence of falsehoods in electoral contexts underscores their effectiveness. Research shows that disinformation strategies in political campaigns significantly impact opponents’ images. Corrective information often fails to alter false beliefs and can even worsen the situation (Nyhan & Reifler, 2010; Nyhan, Reifler, & Ubel, 2013). Nyhan (2012) illustrates how despite Barack Obama releasing his birth certificate, many still believed he wasn't born in the US. False beliefs persist due to extensive exposure, emphasizing the importance of telling a big lie repeatedly, as more people remember the original lie than the subsequent rebuttal.

Another study from Ong and Cabanes (2018) explores the disinformation campaign in the Philippines and proves that campaign managers and political actors are crucial at both local and national levels in Filipino political campaigns. It pinpoints ecological vulnerabilities—in which politicians recruit disinformation architects and build cooperation with them without any clear regulations and sanctions—as a significant factor in enabling a high success rate in spreading disinformation. Examining the 2018 Italian general election, Flore et al. (2019) show that politicians or government agencies often use highly advanced technological tools to influence public opinion, with the specific purpose of sowing doubt. Troll-farms are established, organized and financed to attack prominent people, political parties or newspapers. The intensification of proxy wars in political campaigns has produced massive amounts of disinformation in order to undermine rivals. Competing campaign agendas and images amid political contests is often exploited and vulnerable to manipulation (Scammell, 2015, p. 16). Many forms of lies found in election campaigns can lead voters to have biased political preferences and produce enormous distortions in election outcomes (Rowbottom, 2012, p. 516). Simpser's argument (2013, xv) makes sense in explaining the caution over common logic that popular candidates are unlikely to manipulate elections. All contestants have the same potential to manage political resources to manipulate.

Electoral politics, anti-communism, and military agenda

The antagonistic relationship between the Indonesian military and communist forces has deep historical roots that significantly influence the contemporary political landscape. One pivotal event that exemplifies this antagonism is the tragic genocide of 1965, in which the Indonesian military played a central role. In the electoral process, this historical antagonism manifests itself through the military's involvement in campaigns and the support they offer to certain candidates. Candidates backed by the military often emphasize their commitment to national security, leveraging the enduring anti-communist sentiment to gain support from a segment of the electorate (Aminuddin, 2018).

Broadly, over the past decade, Indonesian electoral politics has seen a remarkable and continuous interaction between the country's military apparatus and the political arena (Aminuddin, 2018; Farchan, 2021). These military factions align themselves with political parties or specific candidates, offering their support in various forms. This goes well beyond mere endorsements; military factions actively participate in campaign strategies, mobilization efforts, and political manoeuvring (Shibghotulloh, 2019). What's particularly noteworthy is the involvement of retired military generals in political campaigns. These experienced figures become integral components of presidential campaign teams and political camps. Some retired military generals themselves have stepped into the political arena as presidential candidates. They leverage their military backgrounds to project an image of strong leadership and national security expertise. This trend highlights the close intertwining of the military and electoral politics.

The military's influence doesn't end with elections. Successful military-backed candidates often appoint retired generals to crucial government positions. This grants them significant influence over policy decisions and governance, further solidifying the military's role in shaping the nation's direction. A common thread in this interaction is the discourse of national security, which often framed within the context of anti-communism, resonate with voters. This narrative reinforces the military's role as a guardian of the nation's stability and security, adding to the appeal of candidates backed by military factions.

Reviving and maintaining the imaginary

2014: Early resurgence

In the early stages of Jokowi's campaign, he strategically engaged several retired generals and military factions, effectively fortifying his position and which supposedly erecting a shield against the anti-communist campaign orchestrated by Prabowo's camp. This calculated move not only provided Jokowi with invaluable support from influential figures within the military but also allowed him to craft a robust mitigation plan. By aligning himself with these military leaders, Jokowi bolstered his image as a leader committed to national unity and security, deflecting the accusations of communist ties and showcasing his ability to navigate the complex political landscape of Indonesia. Nevertheless, despite Jokowi's strategic engagement with military generals and factions, his campaign remained vulnerable to the anti-communist and disinformation campaign orchestrated by Prabowo's camp. This sectios is dedicated to explain the early resurgence of anti-communist accusations address against Jokowi during the campaign.

On 10 May 2014, Jokowi’s editorial ‘Revolusi Mental’ (Mental Revolution) appeared in Kompas. It introduced his central political manifesto as a presidential candidate to the public, in which he emphasized the need to expand the reformation agenda into the ‘paradigm, mindset, or the culture of politics’ instead of it being centralized in physical or infrastructure development. Jokowi envisioned fundamental change in Indonesian attitudes with a new perspective and approach for the nation. Furthermore, he accused Suharto’s repressive era of having created an economic trap, with mushrooming corruption and nepotism, and of having forced Indonesia to increase its level of debt and heavy dependence on other countries. Those problems, Jokowi wrote, were a result of ‘some New Order traditions or cultures … such as corruption, intolerance, greed, selfishness, the tendency to use force to settle matters, law violations and opportunism’ (Widodo, 2014). He thus proposed a revolutionary mission to change mindsets, attitudes and behaviours as a means of resolving structural problems. In Revolusi Mental, Jokowi was proposing a national movement, rooted in families and individuals, which would revolt against all of the decadent thought inherited from the old Indonesia.

Moreover, on 20 May 2014, for the first time in any Indonesian presidential campaign, Jokowi then included a proposed plan for resolving the 1965 mass killings. He encouraged litigation and proposed an ad-hoc commission to dive into the 1965 turbulences (Elsam, 2015). To resolve past human-right abuses, Jokowi committed to unearthing the 1965 mass killings and investigating the May riots in 1998, the Trisakti shootings, the Semanggi shootings (I and II), the Talang Sari incident and the Tanjung Priok massacre (Elsam, 2015; Syahni, 2014). Dealing with past human-rights issues was expected to exploit his rival Prabowo, a retired general and once Suharto’s son-in-law. Prabowo had separately admitted his direct involvement in the abduction of student activists before the 1998 riots and was legitimately responsible for that incident.

Yet, Prabowo’s camp reframed Jokowi’s commitment to resolving the sensitive 1965 mass killings as a sign of communist sympathies. A member of Prabowo’s camp who and the coordinator of the paramilitary organization stated:

I would never imagine such a bold and controversial vision from Jokowi. Of course, we had calculated that most Indonesians definitely hated this communist thing. We proposed the campaign with Prabowo as a Pancasilaist and never accommodating communists. Although we indeed used this issue to attack Jokowi, I never suggested any fitnah (slander) against Jokowi. That’s outsiders who did that. Millions of Mr Prabowo’s supporters, you know, were fanatical.²

Elites within Prabowo’s camp then started to allege that Revolusi Mental carried typical communist ideas. The vice head of the Gerindra party as a leading supporter of Prabowo’s candidacy, Fadli Zon, started the attack by accusing Revolusi Mental of being inspired by Marxism (Syafirdi, 2014). Fadli further argued that it inspired some Indonesian communists to become atheists (Voa Islam, 2014).

This was only the beginning of a series of allegations. Besides the spread of partisan tabloids Obor Rakyat, Martabat, and Sapujagat in amplifying doubts regarding Jokowi’s ancestry, several big social media influencers, for instance @Triomacan2000 (with around 800 thousand followers) and @burunghantu1913 (nearly 70 thousand followers), spread disinformation on Twitter, brutally slandering Jokowi as being of communist descent. The partisan Islamic website, Voa Islam (2014), increased its use of the imaginary by stating that Jokowi’s camp wanted to eliminate MPRS Decree NO. XXV 1966, regarding the prohibition of communism and rejection of Islamic Sharia Regional Regulation, as well as removing the religion column from ID cards.

Moreover, members of Prabowo’s camp repeatedly mischaracterized the PDI-P, a leading party in Jokowi’s headquarters, as the reincarnation of the PKI, and accused a number of its leaders of being communist accomplices. Top officers in the PDI-P, such as Ribka Tjiptaning, Adian Napitupulu, Budiman Sudjatmiko and Rieke Dyah Pitaloka, were harmed by political rumours regarding their ideological stance as devotees of communism. These individuals were all the victims of slurs based on their personal backgrounds: Ribka was a daughter of a PKI member; Adian and Budiman were former activists and members of the banned organization during Suharto’s regime; Rieke was accused of organizing a reunion of former PKI members before the election (Inilah.com, 2014; Nahimunkar, 2014; Voa Islam, 2014).

A month before the 2014 election, fabricated rumours about a PDI-P conspiracy to remove the Babinsa (village-based military officers) raised concerns about the performance of Jokowi’s political machine. The retired general and former Chief of Special Staff Command (Kopassus) Suryo Prabowo started this rumour, calling the party and its allies a leftist group with communist interests that was trying to revive the ‘DN Aidit ideas’, a PKI’s chairman in sixties, in order to keep the army away from people (Sunaryo, 2014). Suryo represented the military and impressed the public with his accusations that the PDI-P and allied parties such as Nasdem, the PKB and Hanura were trying to ‘freeze the Babinsa’, and that this was similar to what the PKI had done in the past (Nahimunkar, 2014). Another retired general, HM Sofwat Hadi, cemented the imaginary by declaring there to be signs of a communist resurgence ahead of the election (Republika, 2014). This rhetoric of bahaya laten, or latent threats, ultimately exposed the master narrative of the New Order, in which the military regime frequently suppressed critical voices as the manifestation of leftists’ hidden agendas.

Three of Jokowi’s former campaign managers stated the importance of mitigating the invocation of the imaginary, yet it was too deep-rooted for anything to be able to neutralize it.³ Jokowi was therefore extremely vulnerable. This was later considered an ‘expensive cost for allowing the first smears’ by campaign managers in Jokowi’s camp.⁴ The camp initially ignored the first attacks based on the communist imaginary, assuming no more clarification was required, as everything about Jokowi’s genealogy was easily found in many media reports. Some elites suggested to Jokowi that he should not react too much, based on the rationale that responding to the false narratives disproportionately would legitimise and entrench the slanders. According to one of the communication experts in Jokowi’s campaign team, the lies were perceived as having no effect: Jokowi had been legally assessed by the General Elections Commission (KPU) and proven to be clear without any inaccuracy in the data. This reasoning countered disinformation about Jokowi’s ancestry, yet it was insufficient. I found only one direct clarification by Jokowi to the press on 25 June 2014, rejecting the claim that he was a communist sympathizer while clarifying that his mother and father’s real identities were ‘already clear and unquestionable’ (Republika, 2014).

Despite needing to prove that the accusations were groundless, Jokowi gave nothing but statements that were slow to arrive and inadequate in substance. Abundant claims at many live events, in both online and print media were clearly more effective and sustained the negative perceptions. Jokowi’s grassroots volunteers helped to neutralize them, but collective attacks can damage a target’s reputation before the ‘truth’ is known (Vaccari & Morini, 2014).

The dominance of military, sympathizer, party elites figures and their frequent speeches on the communist imaginary strengthened the sense of crisis due to the ‘communist candidate’. These actors fostered the idea of ‘communists everywhere’ as the cause of all the nation’s problems, however absurd the claims were. The campaign involved sympathizers, communities and vigilante groups circulating the communist rumour through various information sources and building tension, even after the election ended. Gudkov (2016, p. 392) saw this technique as the means to effectively ‘discredit potential opponents by creating an atmosphere of muddle and confusion and establishing a single, straightforward and simple version attacking the philistine imagination’.

2014–2019: Sustaining the imaginary

This section shows Jokowi’s first year in power (2014–2015) to be a significant episode. This was not only a critical time for the elected president to consolidate his regime but also a chance for the public to see his reaction to the abundant claims, slanders and allegations he had faced in 2014. Would he stick to his promise to resolve the 1965–1967 mass killings, or try to cope with them some other way?

After the 2014 presidential race, the communist imaginary still prevailed, with Jokowi the primary target. I have identified that several attacks reproduced 2014 materials, for example, targeting Jokowi’s term Revolusi Mental and accusing some PDI-P leaders of being communist adherents. On 13 November 2014, Golkar politician, Gandung Pardiman, reiterated the idea that Jokowi's ‘Mental Revolution’ came from Karl Marx’s book, Das Kapital. In similar vein, on 11 October 2014, retired general and Prabowo sympathizer, Soetoyo, claimed that the PKI had successfully infiltrated the bureaucracy, political parties, and state institutions. Soetoyo named several PDI-P elites as PKI cadres, such as Rieke Diah Pitaloka, Ribka Tjiptaning Proletariyati, Dita Indah Sari and Budiman Sujatmiko. However, new issues also started to arise. The attacks became more expansive and involved public figures such as Taufik Ismail, a respected poet and writer, and Anton Tabah, an MUI (Indonesian Council of Muslim Scholars) leader. They accused Jokowi’s government of being Komunis Gaya Baru (next-generation communists) and of replacing Pancasila democracy with communism.

In July 2015, another specific accusation made by Prabowo’s circle (including retired general and Prabowo’s loyalist Kivlan Zen, the partisan Voa Islam, Harian Terbit, and some anonymous Twitter accounts) was made about the president’s intention to apologize (minta maaf) to the victims of the 1965–1967 mass killings. This rumour triggered numerous protests across the country, pushing Jokowi to say he would never apologize (Arifin, 2015; Bhirawa, 2015; Widhana, 2015).

To rebrand himself against the stigma of being the ‘communist president’, in 2016 Jokowi’s government started dozens of seizures and raids on bookstores and events alleged to be communist related. Kontras (a non-governmental organization concerned with human rights enforcement) released a report in 2016 highlighting the rise of oppressive and anti-communist government policy (Kontras, 2016). According to the report, from 2015 to 2016, there were 28 anti-communist public speeches by ministers and other government officials. Kontras reported on the disbanding of twelve film screenings and book raids that involved government personnel, including seven initiated by the military, four by the police and one by the Municipal Police.

This development shows that Jokowi’s regime initiated the opportunity for partisan groups to engage in vigilante acts. In response to the rumour of a presidential minta maaf to the victims of the mass killings, a government official said that there was no intention to apologize to victims’ families (Tempo, 2015).

In 2017, Gatot Nurmantyo, the then-Army Chief Commander of Indonesia, stirred controversy by inviting his troops and Jokowi himself to watch the infamous anti-communist propaganda film ‘G30S/PKI.’ Released in 1984, the film portrays the 1965 coup attempt by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as a failed communist uprising. Notorious for its historical inaccuracies and promotion of anti-communist sentiment, the movie's screening under Nurmantyo's leadership raised suspicions of an attempt to indoctrinate the military with anti-communist ideology. Shortly after this incident, Jokowi dismissed Gatot from his position, with Gatot believing that his invitation to Jokowi to attend the screening played a significant role in his removal from office (Republika, 2014). Gatot’s anti-communist move was met with controversy and tensions with President Jokowi, as it suggested Jokowi's reluctance or aversion to embracing such anti-communist narratives. Subsequently, Gatot's dismissal from his position reflected this clash, highlighting the complexities surrounding anti-communist sentiments within Indonesian politics and their implications for key figures like Gatot. This event underscores the enduring influence of anti-communist narratives and their intersection with Indonesian politics.

Gatot Nurmantyo's fervent anti-communist initiative presented an ironic situation. On one hand, he aimed to reframe President Jokowi's government as an anti-communist administration, potentially countering the accusations of Jokowi having communist sympathies. However, this proactive stance created tensions between Gatot and Jokowi, ultimately conveying the impression that Jokowi remained uncomfortable with the robust anti-communist approach advocated by Gatot. The episode underscored the delicate balancing act that Jokowi faced in managing perceptions related to anti-communism while maintaining political stability.

A former campaign manager in Jokowi’s circle confirmed that the president aimed to invest more in ‘ideological activity’ as a specific political resource, ‘now and later in the next election’.⁵ Becoming a more ‘nationalist’, as well as more anti-communist are considered as part of this ‘ideological activity’ which helps Jokowi distance himself from accusations. Moreover, the vague allegations directed at Jokowi, mainly rumours that he would apologize to the mass killing victims, could have potentially reduced his support from military families. The trend became clear: the government intended to frame itself as anti-communist and commanded its military wings to repress any civilian activity that related to communism. The aggressive approach directly reflected the concern that Jokowi felt his rebuttal was insufficient to combat the slanders.

The most notable anti-communist engines within Jokowi’s government were the two offices, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Home Affairs. Headed by retired general Ryamizard Ryacudu, The Ministry of Defence actively initiated the sweeping or raiding of events that used any communist symbols. Padang Military Command (Kodim) allegedly seized copies of PKI-themed books, including Kronik 65 (The Chronicle of 65), Gestapu 65 PKI (The September 30 Movement), Jas Merah (The Red Coat) and Mengincar Bung Besar (Hunting Down Sukarno), from a bookstore on HOS Cokroaminoto Street, after receiving reports from local residents (Arbi, 2019). Ryamizard also initiated a policy to repress ‘revived communists’ and, at the same time, promoted the nationalistic programme Bela Negara (similar to conscription). The latter programme was co-produced with the Ministry of Home Affairs. The minister, Tjahjo Kumolo, who was also a member of the PDI-P elite, promoted conscription in many of his speeches, as well as implying the need to anticipate a communist resurgence (Defianti, 2017; Ilyas, 2015; Stefanie & Utama, 2016).

This anti-communist rhetoric reflects the insecurity induced by the imaginary. There was a feeling that the government should engage in aggressive and productive counter-narratives to manage Jokowi’s image, especially ahead of the 2019 election. More broadly, the increasing of conservative and illiberal approach are noted by Aspinall and Mietzner (2019, p. 296) through mobilization of state agency and instrumentalisation of the police and military to ease the tension against pro-Prabowo as well as to support executive illiberalism. Considering the ambitious efforts made to encourage anti-communist sentiment, the direction of the first term of Jokowi’s regime, I believe, demonstrated the weight carried by the allegations made against him. More importantly, it demonstrates the persistence of the communist imaginary in Indonesian political discourse.

2019: The rise of military wings and more ideological ‘investment’

In 2019, Saiful Mujani Research Consulting (SMRC), poll conducted just before the elections, a significant 73 percent of respondents expressed disbelief in the rumours associating Jokowi with the PKI, with only 6 percent indicating belief in these claims. Notably, the 6 percent appeared to be staunch anti-Jokowi voters, implying that the rumours did not sway swing voters. Furthermore, a 2021 poll revealed that merely 14 percent of respondents subscribed to the narrative of the PKI resurgence (Detik, 2020). Aside from the SMRC report, Jokowi’s research team within the camp carefully analysed data from Indikator and Charta Politika, two big players in Indonesia’s polling and survey industry. Their data suggested that the voters were vulnerable to hoaxes, particularly those in rural areas with lower levels of formal education.⁶

However, while the majority of the public appears to reject the rumours linking Jokowi to the PKI, the 6 and 14 percent figures hold significance in a different light. These percentages represent a small but potentially influential segment of the population that remains receptive to the narratives of communist resurgence. Political actors, particularly within Prabowo's camp, have the potential to exploit this sentiment by amplifying anti-communist narratives to sway this minority group further. This strategy aims to exacerbate the influence of the anti-communist imaginary, even though it might not hold broad appeal. It underscores how a dedicated effort can utilize a minority viewpoint to generate political leverage and contribute to the persistence of the anti-communist discourse in Indonesian politics.

To recycle the tricks from the 2014 election campaign and spark discontent, numerous party elites and Prabowo supporters actively hosted screenings of the popular New Order propaganda movie, Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI (The Treason of the 30 September Movement Indonesian Communist Party). The camp instructed all of their sympathizers to participate in these events. The leading party, Gerindra, commanded all of its members at the regional level to initiate the movie screenings. The official reason was ‘to commemorate the history of the nation's journey so that we can anticipate any movements that want to change the ideology of Pancasila’.⁷ Another ally, the Berkarya Party, chaired by Suharto’s youngest son Hutomo ‘Tommy’ Mandala Putra, made a more aggressive statement. Tommy instructed all members to run the movie screenings to respect the party’s mission ‘in eradicating the leftist ideas that want to destroy the integrity of the Republic of Indonesia’ (Hadi, 2018). From the conservative Islamist groups, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) amplified the threat of a communist revival by participating in the movie screenings. The PKS accentuated the importance of ‘not forget[ting] the nation’s history’ that had happened around 1965 (CNN Indonesia, 2018).

Prabowo’s camp considered that September was the perfect moment:

We were simply aware that all Indonesian people will always know that September is ‘PKI month’. We did not name specific figures as PKI members or accuse someone of being a communist. But we just simply bring this issue into the campaign, and we tried to respect our history, how we survived the communists’ betrayal. Then, if we could get sympathy from movie screenings, that’s the bonus!⁸

Jokowi’s camp engaged minimally with the issue. A former Jokowi–Ma’ruf campaign manager stated that the camp was not fully confident in deciding how to react. On the one hand, copying what the Prabowo camp was doing by screening the propaganda movie would not look creative at all. On the other hand, disregarding the communist allegation was dangerous because it could undermine Jokowi’s anti-communist campaign during his presidency.⁹

The PDI-P was still frequently accused of being a reincarnation of the PKI in the 2019 contest, as happened in 2014. I consider that ‘communising’ PDI-P was an important strategic initiative by Prabowo’s camp, particularly to complement the major narrative of Komunis Gaya Baru. Several elites in Gerindra built up the tale of KGB operatives who had possibly infiltrated the parliament. Arief Poyuono, vice head of the Gerindra party, sparked controversy amid the debate about electoral threshold regulations in 2017, arguing that the PDI-P had breached constitutional law by proposing a revision of the threshold, and accused the party as ‘equated with the PKI and Komunis Gaya Baru’ (Ibrahim, 2017). Following this, Kivlan Zen expanded on the slander by framing the PDI-P as a government party that had an ideological link with the Chinese Communist Party (Tim CNN Indonesia, 2018b).

Anticipating a revival of the false narratives of 2014 in the 2019 election, Jokowi activated the military faction within his camp. From October 2017, the Bravo 5 team (founded by retired general Luhut Binsar Panjaitan and chaired by another retired general, Fachrul Razi) was tasked with securing the incumbent’s preparations prior to the 2019 election. Aside from Luhut and Fachrul, Bravo 5 gathered 21 military retirees as the core managers of the team. Some of the members, such as Suaidi Marasabessy, Marsetio, and Sumardi, came from Luhut and Fachrul’s generation and had attended military academy in 1970 and 1971 (Pambudi, 2009, p. 55). Their main task was to assess every Prabowo resource and eliminate negative issues and rumours. Jokowi also ordered them to prepare a strategy to counter slander and fake news. One of the Golkar elites I interviewed who was part of the campaign team stated that Jokowi often cites Trump’s surprising win in the 2016 US presidential election when issues emerge that can suddenly reverse support.¹⁰ Some of the individuals mentioned above had secured offices within the central government. Luhut gained the most influential position, serving as the Chief of Presidential Staff from 2014 to 2015, then as Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs (2015–2016). Since 2016, he has served as the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs.

Jokowi’s military approach continued. On 17 July 2018 in West Java, he gathered 4,435 village-based military officers (Babinsa),¹¹ tasking them with ‘explaining simple logic’ to counter the false narrative of the ‘communist president’ (Fikri, 2018). As a reward, Jokowi mentioned guaranteed a 771% increase in the allowance for each Babinsa – unprecedented in the history of government military spending. This had already been signed off by him in June (Utama, 2018).

In return for this ‘gift’, the president was able to instruct the Babinsa on how to defuse the allegations aimed at him with a straightforward narrative (BBC Indonesia, 2018):

‘All of you have already received the increased allowance, right? What is the purpose of us providing an increase in allowances? Because I know that Babinsa are at the forefront of maintaining security, sovereignty, and order in villages. You have to fight the issues that have troubled (isu-isu yang meresahkan) our people. Regarding the hoax that hit me, you can explain that the PKI was dissolved in 1965, and that I was born in 1961—meaning I was only four years old at the time. It doesn’t make sense to say that I was a ‘PKI toddler’, right? That's the logic (that you have to deliver to people)’.

The narrative given to the Babinsa became Jokowi’s primary technique in rebutting the imaginary.¹² Jokowi hosted another 2,000 Babinsa army personnel on 29 July in Makassar, South Sulawesi, where he delivered the same message as in West Java (Faruq, 2018). Following these two events, embedding Jokowi’s reframed image entered a new phase. It is important to note that the incorporation of the Babinsa was one of the military’s most successful achievements in combatting the PKI’s influence over villagers and provoking anti-communist sentiment from 1963 to 1965. During Suharto’s reign, complete military supervision in Indonesian rural areas through the Babinsa was implemented. Due to its well-rooted institutional and strategic roles in villages, Suharto’s party, Golkar, was able to hire the Babinsa to help the party’s campaign in each election (Matanasi, 2018).

Jokowi’s camp expanded the strategy to the paramilitary forces, which had been given less attention in 2014. While in 2014, Prabowo outstripped Jokowi in terms of paramilitary support, ahead of the 2019 election, Jokowi actively approached the Pemuda Pancasila (PP) and eventually received their endorsement. On 28 October 2017, Jokowi attended the PP’s 58th anniversary in Surakarta, hailing them as ‘special one, Pancasila’s shield from outsider threats’ (JPNN, 2017). The PP signalled their endorsement of Jokowi on 11 December 2018, when its leader, La Nyalla Mattalitti, left the Prabowo alliance and openly confessed to having been one of the most active promoters of the communist imaginary in 2014 (Carina, 2018). The role of Mattalitti in 2014 was a significant one: he organized PP members to spread the rumour about the ‘communist Jokowi’ throughout East Java and Madura – home to nearly thirty-five million Muslims. On 3 March 2019, the PP officially announced its support for the Jokowi–Ma’ruf Amin team and swore an oath to ‘combat hate speech and hoaxes’ (Merdeka, 2019).

One of former communications directors within the Jokowi camp concluded that this relationship was expected to be an ideological asset:

We know that as a PDI-P cadre, Mr Jokowi was not well-known for his vision on nationalism and Pancasila. We admit it, of course, and that was the problem: Mr Jokowi was vulnerable in the face of a wild accusation. If you can’t make Mr Jokowi a nationalist (like the first president) Sukarno, you have to create something else. I think in this matter PP will be useful. This could be an asset for Mr Jokowi. He has to speak more often about Pancasila. He should be approaching Pancasila-based organisations more frequently (ormas Pancasilais).¹³

The PP then organized a series of media workshops designed to train its members on how to deal with false narratives regarding Jokowi. They instructed their members to circulate Jokowi’s campaign materials through their national network in cities and rural areas, particularly Jakarta and West Java. According to one of the PP leaders, in 2019 contest, these two areas were highly vulnerable to disinformation.¹⁴

Jokowi’s final ideological investment was in religion, the moral values of which often contradict those of communism. He successfully obtained solid support from the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), whose supreme leader, Ma’ruf Amin, accepted an offer to run as the vice-presidential candidate on 9th August 2018. Amin's role, along with NU's support, went beyond countering the PKI scare campaign. Amin's selection aimed to shield Jokowi from allegations of being anti-Islamic and to portray Prabowo as a risky ally of Rizieq, a figure associated with controversial Islamic movements. One should note that Jokowi initially preferred Mahfud over Amin, but NU and other political parties compelled him to choose Amin. This was primarily driven by NU and political parties within Jokowi’s alliance who projected Mahfud as ‘less NU’ and thereby perceived to fail to consolidate with NU as a whole.

The NU is a powerful ally for two key reasons: it is a dominant social force supporting the Indonesian military and contributed to the communists’ destruction, and it is the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia with 80 million members as of 2016 (Ali, 2017). It provided a religious shield and helped mitigate the disinformation about Jokowi’s communist sympathies and affiliations through various statements and mediums (Wadipalapa, 2021).

By obtaining support from the Babinsa, the PP and the NU, Jokowi has embraced a new brand of anti-communist persona’. He has used the concepts of Pancasila, national sovereignty and Islamic values as the basis for his new anti-communist vision, and to counter political smears.

The presidential contests in 2014 and 2019: reinforcing the authoritarian imaginary

Regarding the historical ‘bond’ to the authoritarian era, the post-Suharto politics, I believe, have inherited a deeply distrustful society in which people have always been motivated to suspect every trivial occurrence. This pattern was also identified by Spyer (2002, p. 35) as the ‘compulsive need’ to interpret everything as having hidden meaning. Bubandt (2009, p. 559) called this ‘obsessive decoding’, which was complicated by the dissemination of fear and rumour. In a now digital Indonesian society, the obsession with knowledge and the flood of information that is circulated to make people suspect every critic of being leftist or communist is copied what the New Order achieved years ago.

The two elections showed both contestants’ heavy reliance upon a historical memory reservoir in their campaigns. Prabowo’s camp deployed the threat of a communist revival in their allegations about their rival. Jokowi’s camp, meanwhile, focused on proving him to be an anti-communist. The aggressive anti-communist campaign maintained an environment of social stress, filling public discourse with the spectre of the PKI and all of its associated problems. There is, therefore, no distinction between the authoritarian imaginary and the democratic regime imaginary. It may have been expected that the sense of imagined villains or perceived threats would change over time. The 2014 and 2019 presidential elections, unfortunately, prove that wrong.

To make sense of the vindictive allegations, ridiculous slanders and irrational accusations prevalent in the two recent presidential elections, I suggest re-reading the imaginary as preconditioning and defining good and evil in politics. At the core of an election are not merely technical or procedural struggles among contestants, but a place that enables the generation of an imaginary and the invocation of fears, threats, anxieties and paranoia. While indications that the communist imaginary persisted were omnipresent, they were not observed. I would argue that failing to acknowledge this political imaginary is to fail to acknowledge how fear and anxiety inhabit Indonesia’s politics. My approach is to explore the political imaginary, a central feature of past and present encounters in electoral settings, and how it both decides who are insiders and outsiders and defines what is good and what is evil.

The narratives not only provoked Indonesian nationalist sentiment but also created a clear route for the army into politics. The state’s defence was then constructed through the reiteration of the communist threat, which, I would argue, helped legitimise the Jokowi government’s oppressive policies. The military was able to capitalize on the imaginary, and, more significantly, civilian elites were used for electoral purposes. Jokowi had the support of his leading party, the PDI-P, and civilian-controlled political parties provided retired military generals with strategic campaign positions. Thus, the anti-communist agenda became a collaborative arena of civilian elites and army figures. In the 2019 race, both camps relied on military support through its active member and retirees military network.

While strong dislike of the military’s repressive role during the New Order still exists, the communist imaginary provided a perfect way for the military to reshape its image. The project has created an elusive ‘new enemy’ for the post-authoritarian era. Despite competing interpretations, dark memories and prolonged political propaganda have been relatively successful in bringing all political actors into full agreement about the communist threat to the nation. In other words, the communist imaginary has become a foundational myth with collective approval. Numerous military speakers have amplified the imaginary as if they are speaking on behalf of the state, claiming authority as protectors of the nation, and giving it special significance for electoral purposes. This is in line with the findings of the Indikator Institute, which conducted a national survey of Indonesians and named the army as the most trusted and positively viewed institution in the country (Detik 2020). The survey posed questions about the credibility of military figures and gave a partial explanation as to why people may choose to believe and engage with the nonsensical military narrative about a communist revival.

Where Heryanto (2006) argued that state-sponsored terrorism played an essential part in supplying legitimacy to the regime (by delivering a rationale for the establishment of the New Order), I would argue that it was not just an attempt to establish that legitimacy. Instead, the shocking stories and the continuous efforts to embed a sense of crisis, or to recall the recognizable threat of communism, meant the imaginary had a significant role in the creation of the Indonesian political community. Repetitive use of the imaginary among political actors has embedded the crisis across the electoral spectrum. The two presidential races that involved Jokowi and Prabowo, I believe, have played the same role as the New Order did in defining perceived threats.

The concept of a latent threat (bahaya laten) was recycled by both camps, in public speeches and accessible statements in the media. The perceived ‘latent threat’ became a mantra that focused on the nation’s vulnerability, portraying it as a fragile society, which is always on the verge of crisis and at risk from the revival of the PKI.

As a result, comprehending the numerous falsehoods in Indonesia’s elections can only be achieved by analysing the imaginary as a preconditioned variable. Sensing which and why imaginary narratives inhabit elections also appears critical when aiming to fully grasp how electoral campaigns work. A focus on the components and methods of political disinformation should not be at the expense of exploring the broader relationship between the imaginary and Indonesian politics, including mobilizing support for and undermining candidates. In the wake of the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections, Indonesia’s collective communist imaginary remains resistant to any efforts to neutralize the slanders and allegations it contains. The use of scare campaigns in Indonesia’s elections cannot be seen as simple mechanical processes: the electorate is driven by anxiety, fear and excitement to fight the demon communism.

These findings also re-strengthen the worrying trend of the democratic decline (Power, 2018; Warburton & Aspinall, 2019). Since 2017, Indonesia experienced a significant decline in its democratic ranking, as reported by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index (2018), raising the risk of transitioning from a ‘flawed democracy’ to a ‘hybrid regime’. Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index showed limited progress in Indonesia's ranking since 2014, with a recent decline in its comparative international position (Transparency International 2018). The Press Freedom Index exhibited fluctuations throughout the 2010s (RSF 2018), but the growth of politically influential ‘oligopolies’ has led to a less free and pluralistic media landscape compared to the initial years of reformasi (Tapsell 2017). The playing field for democracy has become highly uneven, resembling some of the most challenging periods since the downfall of the New Order regime.

In recent years, Indonesia's democratic regime has become increasingly vulnerable as human rights activism and the reform narrative have waned, while counter-democratic forces have intensified their attacks on the country's formal democratic institutions. Troublingly, President Jokowi himself has actively contributed to the erosion of the foundations of democracy, despite occasionally paying lip service to its virtues and the need to address past wrongdoings. These developments pose a grave threat to the future of Indonesia's democratic regime as they not only undermine the narrative of democratic reform but also severely hamper civil society's capacity to serve as the final stronghold of Indonesia’s democracy.

Conclusion

This article has explored how the communist imaginary is exploited by actors and weaponised in political elections, in particular the Indonesian presidential elections of 2014 and 2019.

The incumbent Jokowi spent his first presidential term re-framing himself as anti-communist. There was myriad evidence during that time that his government and the military had suppressed materials and events related to communism, including discussions, seminars and books. To silence the huge smear campaign directed at him, Jokowi consolidated his military wings, the paramilitary Pemuda Pancasila and the Nahdlatul Ulama. Prabowo’s camp meanwhile invoked a romanticized narrative of a communist threat. Numerous sympathizers and elites organized propaganda movie screenings, exaggerated the PKI’s resurgence through the Komunis Gaya Baru (next-generation communists) narrative, and aggressively circulated smears via partisan media. This article has also unveiled the anti-communist group within Prabowo’s camp that was significant in endorsing and disseminating disinformation, and whose status gave the false narratives credence.

Therefore, I conclude that the communist imaginary has been developed in two key ways. First, the ubiquity of the communist imaginary in elections has not only served as evidence of a continuous strategy to win the election but also as a signal that Indonesia’s recent elections were dominated by the New Order authoritarian imaginary. Officials from Prabowo’s camp have admitted that this was the most powerful and simplest approach, while the elephant in the room in Jokowi’s camp – despite his anti-communist rebranding in his first term – was the lack of any response to allegations of communist affiliation. Both camps showed their dependency on the stigma attached to communism when trying to achieve various political aims.

The multifaceted role of the communist imaginary in the 2014 and 2019 general elections becomes apparent as I trace its evolution. Initially, it functioned as a potent electoral instrument, strategically deployed to mold public sentiment. However, a deeper analysis unveils a broader significance that extends beyond the electoral arena; it also paved the way for the Indonesian military's re-engagement in politics. This study emphasizes that while the communist imaginary was initially wielded as a tactical tool by Prabowo against Jokowi during the elections, it concurrently served as a conduit for the Indonesian military's resurgence in the political sphere. It exemplifies how the military has harnessed the communist imaginary not only to sway public opinion during elections but also to establish its presence and influence in the political landscape.

Second, the election campaigns have made the imaginary an excuse for military upgrades within the regime. The feared rise of Komunis Gaya Baru, propaganda movie screenings and the Bela Negara (conscription) programme all suggest an increased role for the military in anticipating the ‘threat’ of communism. Prabowo’s camp also had an interest in selling their candidate as a successful military figure who hoped to protect the nation from the perceived menace of communism. As a result, the 2014 and 2019 contests reshaped the political imaginary and handed power back to the elites and military factions. The people’s fears of communism support a perceived need for greater protection and for increasing the army’s role in countering threats.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP): [S-327/LPDP.3/2019].

Notes on contributors

Rendy Pahrun Wadipalapa

Rendy Pahrun Wadipalapa recently obtained a PhD from the University of Leeds in October 2022, with a research focus on the persistence of the communist imaginary in Indonesian electoral politics. The primary objective of the research was to conduct a systematic analysis of the significance of the communist imaginary in Indonesia's presidential elections, highlighting how its invocation proved to be a crucial political resource in the 2014 and 2019 campaigns.

Notes

1 Robert Cribb (1990, p. 12) summarizes earlier reports from scholars (1966 to 1978) who mentioned specific numbers of victims. As many as 32 versions published varied in their estimates from 150,000 to 1 million. In 2015, the Murder Victims Research Foundation of 1965 (YPKP 65) even claimed the death toll in the post-30 September 1965 tragedy reached more than 3 million people

2 Video-conference interview, Prabowo’s camp and paramilitary leader. 15 August 2020.

3 Video-conference interview, Jokowi–Kalla’s camp, 29 August 2020; 2 September 2020; 27 September 2020.

4 Video-conference interview with member of Jokowi–Kalla’s camp who responsible for data management and research, 29 August 2020.

5 Videoconference interview, Jokowi’s campaign manager. 14 September 2020.

6 Videoconference interview, Jokowi’s camp. 14 September 2020.

7 Video-conference interview, Gerindra’s officer and former Prabowo–Sandiaga campaign manager, 11 September 2020.

8 Video conference interview, Prabowo–Sandiaga former campaign manager, 15 August 2020.

9 Author video-conference interview, Jokowi’s camp, 29 August 2020.

10 Video-conference interview, former Jokowi–Ma’ruf campaign manager and Golkar elite, 12 May 2021.

11 Babinsa positions can be held by army members, from First Corporal (Koperal Satu) rank to Sergeant Major (Sersan Mayor), with the responsibility for carrying out territorial development in accordance with headquarters’ instructions; collecting and managing data on geography, demography, social conditions; development of potential (human and natural) on a national scale; and infrastructure improvements in rural areas. See Regulation of the Army Chief of Staff No 19/IV/2008.

12 I found that eight of Jokowi’s speeches cited his ‘internal survey’ and emphasized a similar narrative of ‘simple logic’. The speeches were given on: 30 October 2018 in Jakarta (Ihsanuddin, 2018), 23 November 2018 in Lampung (Kompas, 2018a), 25 November 2018 in Palembang (Liputan 6, 2018), 07 December 2018 in Jakarta (Kompas, 2018b), 14 December 2018 in Aceh (Tempo, 2018, 18 December 2018 in Jombang (Lesmana & Raharjo, 2018), 26 January 2019 in Solo (CNN Indonesia, 2018), and on 31 March 2019 in North Sulawesi (Nathaniel, 2019).

13 Video conference interview, former communications director in the Jokowi–Ma’ruf Amin campaign team, 23 May 2021.

14 Video conference interview, PP local leader, 30 April 2021.