Ethnic mobilization in 2015 local elections in North Sumatra, Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Since Indonesia implemented the regional decentralization in 2001, ethnic politics attracted increasing scholarly attention. In the regional head elections, ethnic mobilization has become a pervasive phenomenon. Drawing upon the data in the 2015 local elections in the North Sumatra province, the article discusses two related questions, the strategy and the effect of ethnic mobilization. The article argues that, contrary to the minimum winning coalition theory, there is a weak correlation between the ethnic demography and the choice of ethnic mobilization strategy (bonding or bridging). Among all the ethnic mobilization tactics, the support of ethnic organizations may have a weak to moderate and positive impact on the voting results, while other tactics, including pairing with candidates of other ethnic groups and cultural presentations of ethnic identity, do not have much influence on the election results.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic mobilization
• election
• Indonesia
• ethnic politics
• North Sumatra

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to all the interviewees who generously shared their knowledge with me during my field work. I am greatly indebted to the regency-level Election Committees (KPUD) and Election Monitoring Committees (Panwaslu) of North Sumatra. I would like to say special thanks to the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. All errors and omissions that remain are solely my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Davidson, “Visual Representations of Ethnic Violence,” 124.

2. Prasad, Identity Politics and Elections, Chapter 1.

3. Thufail, “When Peace Prevails on Kasih Hill.”

4. Fox, “Appealing to the Masses,” 221–35.

5. Olzak, “Contemporary Ethnic Mobilization,” 355.

6. Vermeersch, “Theories of ethnic mobilization,” 4.

7. Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa, Chapter 1.

8. Fox, “Appealing to the Masses,” 350–351.

9. Mietzner, “Indonesia’s Direct Elections,” 173–90.

10. Aspinall, “Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia,” 305.

11. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Chapter 9.

12. Aspinall, “Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia,” 303

13. Ananta, Arifin, and Suryadinata, Indonesian Electoral Behaviour, 373.

14. LSI Lingkaran Survei Indonesia, “Faktor Etnis dalam Pilkada,” 2.

15. Aspinall, Dettman, and Warburton, “When Religion Trumps Ethnicity,” 42–5.

16. Ananta, Arifin, and Suryadinata, Indonesian Electoral Behaviour, 372–5, 409–10.

17. Liddle and Mujani, “Leadership, Party, and Religion,” 849.

18. The ethnic demography data used in this study, if not otherwise specified, is from National Census 2010.

19. In this study, an ethnic group comprising 60% of population is set as the baseline of forming a minimum winning coalition instead of 50%, because it will give more statistical assurance to the candidate that forming a minimum winning coalition is possible in reality.

20. LSI Lingkaran Survei Indonesia, “Faktor Etnis dalam Pilkada,” 30.

21. The elections were planned to take place simultaneously on 9 December 2015. Election of Simalungun was postponed to 10 February 2016 and the election of Pematang Siantar was postponed to 16 November 2016.

22. The regencies in North Sumatra studied in this paper excludes four regencies and one city on the island of Nias.

23. Campaign materials refer to the printed materials to promote the candidates for the election, including one-page flyer (selebaran), brochure (brosur), pamphlet(pamflet), poster, roll-up banner (baliho), flag(umbul-umbul) and banner (spanduk). In the 2015 simultaneous elections, the aforementioned campaign materials were required to submit to the Regional General Election Committee (KPUD) for approval and later printed and disseminated by the Regional General Election Committee. The cost for making the campaign materials were borne by KPUD. This policy was ratified by the Regulation of the General Election Committee Number 7 of 2015 (Peraturan KPU Nomor 7 Tahun 2015).

24. See Putnam, Bowling Alone, the Collapse and Revival, 23.

25. Scholten and Holzhacker, “Bonding, Bridging and Ethnic Minorities,” 83.

26. Peeters and d’Haenens, “Bridging or Bonding?” 209.

27. During the 2015 North Sumatra election, there were nine regencies where the largest ethnic group constituted over 60% of the population, namely Tapanuli Selatan, Sibolga, Pakpak Bharat, Humbang Hasundutan, Pematang Siatntar, Samosir, Karo and Mandailing Natal. There are categorized as ethnically homogeneous regencies in this study. Otherwise, the regencies where its largest ethnic group consisted of less than 60% of the total population are categorized as ethnically heterogeneous regencies.

28. Interview with members of Forum Komunikasi Tokoh Masyarakat (FKTM), on 23 February 2016.

29. Interview with a renowned ethnic leader in Belige, 19 February 2016.

30. Siregar, “Political Oratory in a Modernizing,” 21.

31. Aspinall, “Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia,” 302.

32. SIB, “Masyarakat Batak Asahan Upa-Upa.”

33. In fact, it is not illegal for ethnic organizations to participate in political activities. In the Law on Social Organizations No. 13/2013, there are only two clauses related to political participation: in Clause 52, it is stipulated that social organizations established by foreigners are not allowed to conduct political activities; Clause 59 forbids social organizations to assist funding for political parties. Other than the two clauses mentioned above, there are no particular regulation to forbid social organizations to voice their opinion in political activities.

34. Fox, “Appealing to the Masses,” x.

35. Interview with a Chinese Indonesian ethnic leader on 15 January 2016, in Medan.

36. Scholten and Holzhacker, “Bonding, Bridging and Ethnic Minorities,” 83.

37. Peeters and d’Haenens, “Bridging or Bonding?” 202.

38. Aspinall, “Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia,” 299.

39. Pematang Siantar is categorized as an ethnically homogeneous place pursuant to the criterion used in this study because its largest ethnic group Batak consists of its 63.97% population, however, it is more often considered as an ethnically heterogeneous city, because there is no single Batak sub-ethnic group that dominates the Batak population in the city, and the sub-ethnic groups of Bataks, e.g. Toba, Simalungun and Mandailing, usually think of themselves as ethnic groups instead of a sub-ethnicity of ‘Batak’.

40. Interview on 7 March 2016, in Pematang Siantar.

41. Rainbow pair refers to the candidate pair consisting of two persons from different religious background. Since there is certain level of coherence between ethnicity and religion, for example most Javanese, Malay and Mandailing are Muslims, while Toba Batak are largely Protestant, it is very often that candidates of a rainbow pair come from different ethnic groups.

42. SIB, “Soekirman Klaim Survey Elektabilitas.”

43. Interview with KPUD the local election commission in Tanjung Balai, on 16 March 2016.

44. President Joko Widodo was known for his unannounced visit (blusukan) to voters’ houses when he was the Mayor of Solo and Governor of Jakarta. This strategy became well known throughout the country through the Internet and media coverage.

45. The voting result measured by the percentage of votes won by each pair of candidates (r = −0.0862, p > 0.05), and by the binary election result (win or lose) (r = −0.0488, p > 0.05).

46. The voting result measured by the percentage of votes won by each pair of candidates (r = −0.2096, p > 0.05), and by the binary election result (win or lose) (r = −0.0757, p > 0.05).

47. The voting result measured by the percentage of votes won by each pair of candidates r = −0.0047, p > 0.05), and by the binary election result (win or lose) (r = 0.0220, p > 0.05).

48. The voting result measured by the percentage of votes won by each pair of candidates (r = −0.2545, p < 0.05), and by the binary election result (win or lose) (r = −0.2598, p < 0.05).

49. The voting result measured by the percentage of votes won by each pair of candidates (r = 0.2154, p > 0.05) in general, and by the binary election result (win or lose) (r = 0.0516, p > 0.05).

50. The voting result measured by the percentage of votes won by each pair of candidates (r = 0.0787, p > 0.05), and by the binary election result (win or lose) (r = −0.0842, p > 0.05).

51. The voting result measured by the percentage of votes won by each pair of candidates (r = 0.1539, p > 0.05), and by the binary election result (win or lose) (r = 0.0325, p > 0.05).

52. See Buehler, “Local Elite Reconfiguration”; Arifianto and Chen, “Simultaneous Local Elections in Indonesia”; and Fossati, Simandjuntak, and Fionna, “A Preliminary Assessment.”

53. Incumbency is defined as both the incumbent regent and vice-regent.

54. Van Klinken, “The Limits of Ethnic Clientelism,” 57.

55. Interview on 15 January 2016 with a member of a campaign team (tim sukses).

56. Aspinall, “Democratization and Ethnic Politics in Indonesia,” 309.

57. Interview on 28 January 2016, Labuhanbatu.

58. Only seven pairs of candidates neither used ethnic bonding strategy nor ethnic bridging strategy.

59. Interview with a journalist and campaign team leader in Pematang Siantar, on 9 March 2016.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council under Grant International Regional Issues Research and Foreign Language High-level Personnel Training Project, Number 20150620586. The author is also thankful for the financial support of Developing Country Studies Ph.D. Program, Tsinghua University.

Notes on contributors

Song Xue

Song Xue is a PhD candidate of Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University. Her research focus is Indonesia’s ethnic politics and foreign policy.