By: Dodik Prasetyo) *
Different choices in democracy are their own colors. But that is not an excuse to divide the Indonesian people.
The founders of the nation since the old order until the new order have implemented a democratic system, even though with a different version. Open democracy that has been implemented since post-reformation is a gift for the people to be able to directly elect their future leaders.
In the face of contestation in elections, democratic maturity is also very much needed, political elites also have to exemplify the community about good democracy, one of which is by respecting candidates who get the most votes.
Democracy certainly has rules for the game. There are institutions designated as court administrators. The institution that has the right to decide the winner in this election is the General Election Commission (KPU).
Democracy certainly cannot guarantee that someone will win the election because everything goes through an open, transparent and accountable process.
During the campaign period which took place from September 23, 2018 to April 13, 2019, of course it was quite attention-grabbing. Ideally in the mass of the campaign, the contestants clashed with the program, but in reality the black campaign continued to exist, and even places of worship did not escape being a place to campaign under the guise of lectures. So that polarization arises between supporters. This is what makes the seeds of division in the community.
During the calculation period, the KPU was also not immune to various allegations of fraud, issues of calculation systems and so on, this even further extended polarization to easily provoked grassroots.
On May 21, 2019, the KPU has submitted the results of the recapitulation and announced who is eligible to be the winner. But ironically the split is still thick, there are some figures who call for demonstrations against injustice. The call for people power is getting stronger, until finally the chaos in the Bawaslu building is inevitable.
Whatever the argument, the figures who did not accept this defeat showed immaturity in democracy. Provocation to reduce mass becomes real. From 21 to 22 May 2019 during the initial peaceful demonstration, but after the tarawih prayer, the protestors rioted and attacked the authorities. Many victims were injured, some died, some were detained by officers and even stones were found in ambulances.
The election which is a Rematch between Prabowo vs Jokowi is indeed quite hot. Not a few supporters who are blind to defending their champions, so lightly throw slanders so that their champions can get power without having a sense of humanity.
What was unfortunate at the time of the riots was the pleasure of Ramadan which was supposed to be filled with worship but in Jakarta became a venue for brutal demonstrations. Even though the majority of these actions were Muslim.
This alarming condition is certainly necessary for the study of the implementation of democracy this year. Starting from the study of election participants, election implementers and election supervisors.
Sportsmanship is done by the way the losers admit defeat and the winners embrace the losers. This sportsmanship will eventually mature the Indonesian democracy.
In addition, the percentage of news related to political hoaxes on social media is also quite large, so the public needs to be vigilant so as not to swallow raw information obtained related to politics and government. Especially for social media activists, they must be careful in their activities in the digital universe, because this is the land most used to spread hoaxes.
This fact shows that neutralizing the message of peace and unity on social media is becoming increasingly important for every social media user to do. This is because if the truth has been swallowed up by the clash of personal beliefs of each person in the era of post truth, prioritizing the spirit of peace, unity and unity is the main thing. Without this, social media will only be full of blaming and blasphemous narratives of opinion which could be sourced from the spread of hoax news.
The movement to neutralize the message of peace must certainly be massively mobilized by the existing community, therefore there needs to be a collective awareness that fights all content that has the potential to trigger divisions and quarrels with each other.
) * Author. Is a political social observer