One year before the national elections, in an April 18, 2017 editorial, the English language newspaper Jakarta Post declared that the 2017 Jakarta Gubernatorial Campaign was “the dirtiest, most polarizing and most divisive the nation has ever seen, even far worse than that for the 2014 presidential election, which we all thought was already the pits.”Footnote ¹ This was due to the use of religion and race in campaign rhetoric. The use of identity politics was so effective that it brought down the incumbent Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahja Purnama, a Chinese Christian with an enviable 70% approval rating.Footnote ² Unsurprisingly, the 2017 Jakarta Gubernatorial Election result loomed large over the following 2018 Simultaneous Regional Elections and the 2019 General Elections, which were defined by their use of identity politics, which would change the direction of politics in Indonesia.

For this reason, The 2018 and 2019 Indonesian Elections: Identity Politics and Regional Perspectives, edited by Leonard C. Sebastian and Alexander R. Arifianto, is a timely addition to the literature on Indonesian democracy and elections, investigating the prevalence and the importance of the role of identity, especially religious identity, in those elections. It is a must-read book for anyone interested in the use and impacts of identity politics in Indonesian elections.

Divided into eleven chapters, this book's main contribution is in showing how identity politics play out in eight provinces: West, Central, and Eastern Java, North and West Sumatera, West Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, and East Nusa Tenggara, specifically the Sumba region, while addressing alternative explanations, notably economic-based and political party explanations, for example in chapter 2 (Guild). Most of the chapters are structured as follows: the region discussed is set against its unique historical backgrounds, followed by discussions on the interplay of the local politics and national issues, then important identity politics that influenced the dynamics of local cleavages, and finally how those factors played out during the 2018 Simultaneous Regional Election and the 2019 Presidential Election.

Each chapter shows why using identity politics provides an appealing strategy for local politicians, even in homogenous provinces. Chapter 3 (Marzuki and Anindya), for example, considers West Java. Notwithstanding the fact that the province is relatively homogenous – 97% of the population are Moslems and 80% of the populations are Sundanese – political opponents of popular and leading candidates Ridwan Kamil and Dedi Mulyadi launched black campaigns that slandered them. The former as a secular, non-practicing Muslim, LBGT-sympathizer, and a Shi'ite, whereas the latter was painted as an idolater who practiced mysticism (p. 44). Those ad hominem attacks were so effective that the Gerindra party and the Islamist Party PKS managed to propel Retired Major General Sudrajat, who was an outsider in West Java politics and lacking name recognitions unlike his rivals Ridwan Kamil, UU Ruzhanul Ulum, Deddy Mizwar, and Dedi Mulyadi, into the second place, within striking distance of beating the ultimate winner Ridwan Kamil.

In the 2019 Presidential Elections, despite President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo's enviable approval rating of 60% in West Java (p. 46), he and his vice-presidential candidate, Ma'ruf Amin, lost the province to their rivals, Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno by a significant vote of 10,750,568 to 16,077,446. The reason, as noted, was the opposition's questioning of Jokowi's Islamic credentials, calling him a communist or a descendant of a communist, unfavorable to Islam, and criminalizing opposition-leaning religious leaders. Such attacks took tolls on Jokowi's electability, despite the fact that he picked Ma'ruf Amin as his vice-presidential candidate to fend off those kinds of black campaigns.

In the homogenous West Sumatera, chapter 7 (Wanto and Sebastian) explains its shared history of having been the center of the PRRI Rebellion in 1958 made Jokowi's attempt of increasing his shares of vote in the presidential elections an uphill battle. Jokowi's party, the PDI-P, had been consistently doing poorly in the region thanks to its linkage to Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, who was seen very negatively in the province. Combined with all the black campaigns against Jokowi, it was not surprising that Prabowo won the province by 85.91% of the votes (pp. 111–112).

In the homogenous provinces of Central and East Java, discussed in chapters 4 (Arifianto) and 5 (Hasyim), Jokowi's decision to ally himself with the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the dominant religious organization in these two provinces (pp. 64, 83), bore fruit as he decisively won these two provinces. Here, Prabowo's decision to ally his campaign with radical Islamists, notably the 212 movement that included the notorious vigilante group Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defender Front/FPI) that brought down Ahok in Jakarta in 2017, backfired as the NU felt threatened by the movement, and thus decided to throw their support to Jokowi.

In Christian-majority Sumba, discussed in chapter 10 (Lundry), Prabowo's association with the 212 Movement also hurt him badly, with rumor of him wanting to implement sharia law drove the voters’ turnout against him, leading to Jokowi's massive victory gaining the votes of 88.57% of population in East Nusa Tenggara Province.Footnote ³

South Sulawesi, discussed in chapter 8 (Dinarto and Nubowo), provides a counter-example. In this relatively homogenous province, religious identity did not play any role in both the mayoral and gubernatorial elections of 2018. Rather, the elections were marked by a backlash against candidates that were closely related with the local oligarchy, the Limpo and Kalla families. Voters instead picked candidates who had proven track records, and in Makassar Mayoral Election, picked an empty ballot box, having had the leading mayoral candidate disqualified over technicalities. And this showed during the 2019 Presidential Election, that despite of having then Vice President Jusuf Kalla's endorsements, Jokowi still lost the province.

In provinces where the population is diverse, ethno-religious cleavages also show its importance in predicting who would win the election. In North Sumatra, discussed in chapter 6 (Tiola and Primarizki), the winning pair Retired Lieutenant General Edy Rahmayadi and Musa Rajekshah dominated the mostly Moslem eastern part, supported by popular preachers who were using religious rhetoric and recalling events from Jakarta Gubernatorial Election. Their opponents, Djarot Saiful Hidayat and Sihar Sitorus, won the Christian dominated districts of western North Sumatera. Djarot himself was formerly Ahok's deputy governor, making him vulnerable to the slanders for a seeming lack of piety.

In West Kalimantan, discussed in chapter 9 (Chen), an ethnic alliance proved critical in the gubernatorial election. The former Dayak governor Cornelis was perceived of playing favoritism with his political appointments for department heads, from which his own Dayak tribe was benefited. This led to the backlash from the ethnic Malay Moslems, the losers from the arrangement. This group ended up working together with national Islamist movements such as the FPI, marking the 2018 Gubernatorial Election with ethno-religious sloganeering.

It is clear from the cases elaborated in depth in this edited volume that identity politics has become more important and will perhaps remain so in the future, especially at the national level. Regionally, it is a mixed bag, with historical and socio-political conditions also play important roles in mitigating the impact of identity politics (p. 190).

There are, however, several problems in the argument that the book built on. Most crucially, “identity politics,” and what kind of identity politics is crucial for analysis, is not clearly defined in this book. As a result, it is difficult to find a specific theoretical framework and a unified theme, bringing into question whether it was ethnic or religious identity that had the most impact. Granted that in most cases they went hand-in-hand, but a more defined definition of “identity politics” would strengthen the chapters and the book as a whole.

Second, there are several occasions where the role identity played was probably not the main reason of why candidates lost. Instead, it seems that poor organization and poor campaigning could equally explain the loss, along with the fact that the oppositions might be better campaigners. In East Java, the loss of Saifullah Yusuf and Puti Guntur Soekarno could also be attributed to the lack of enthusiasm from local party apparatus, as the pair was imposed by the national party officials. Worse, Gerindra, one of the supporter parties, although technically backing the pair, ended up marshaling their resources to support Prabowo Subianto, their eventual presidential nominee in the Presidential Election that took place a year later.

In North Sumatera, Djarot Saiful Hidayat and Sihar Sitorus, the losing pair, were also criticized for paying too much attention to voters from the regions that were already in their pockets and neglecting voters from the East Coast, meaning that voters from the East Coast had fewer reasons to vote for them. There was also questionable campaign decision, notably by shifting gears late in their campaign, from focusing on “practical matters such as programmatic healthcare and education to participating in the same kind of identity politics akin to their rivals” (Tiola and Primarizki, p. 97).

And this is also true for the 2019 Presidential Election. In West Java, Prabowo had cultivated relations with clerics and religious schools since 2014, which allowed him to mobilize voters. Jokowi, on the other hand, seemed to rely on Ma'ruf Amin to use his influence to make an inroad to the hostile religious leaders, and the latter's influence was, in hindsight, not as large as expected. In fact, in provinces where the Islamist groups were dominant, Ma'ruf Amin had almost no influence. In Central and East Java, it was less identity politics than the complete domination of both the PDI-P, Jokowi's main supporting party, and NU in both provinces, and its fear over the prospect of Prabowo's victory, that handed these provinces to Jokowi. In South Sulawesi, although identity politics played a role in Prabowo-Sandiaga's advantage in the province, it was also admitted that the regional campaign team of Jokowi-Ma'ruf “had struggled with funding and logistical issues, lacking coordination among coalitional parties in promoting their respective candidates among constituencies” and “there was no meeting among coalition parties 2 months before the election commenced” (Dinarto and Nubowo, p. 136). In a sense, had Jokowi's campaign been better funded and organized in South Sulawesi, it would have had the opportunity to flip the province.

Nevertheless, this book remains a worthy addition to the literature on democracy, especially for those interested in the impact on identity politics in general, and Indonesian elections in particular. The book is highly recommended.