Jakarta – All elements of society must be able to unite and be aware of the presence of political parties which indicate that their administrators are affiliated with terrorist networks, moreover they are trying to infiltrate the upcoming 2024 general election.
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to be able to compete in an electoral contest in a particular country. Members of the party generally have the same ideas about politics and parties can also promote certain ideological goals or policies that they have.
It can be said that indeed many parties are motivated by certain ideological goals, such as the existence of parties with liberal, conservative, socialist, populism, nationalism and so on. They also in various countries including Indonesia, will often adopt the same colors and symbols to identify themselves with a particular ideology that they adhere to.
Based on this ideology, later there was an allegation that there were members of political parties who were indicated to be terrorist networks. This allegation then surfaced ahead of the upcoming 2024 General Election (Election) democratic party.
For information, terrorist networks in Indonesia usually prefer direct or face-to-face (offline) recruitment rather than through social media (online) even though nowadays, everything has started to be online based. Usually, terrorist networks only use social media to spread the radicalism they embrace.
It cannot be denied that the recruitment process for terrorist networks in Indonesia is indeed different from that in several countries, such as in Europe and Malaysia, which use more online routes. Because most terrorist networks use offline channels, political parties have become one of the venues for recruiting these terrorist networks when they are already affiliated with the radical group.
It has been proven that the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) has suspected that there are already terrorist networks that have begun to enter political parties, especially for those who are categorized as newcomers.
In this regard, the Head of the BNPT, Komjen Boy Rafli Amar stated that there were indications that there were members of political parties who were affiliated with terrorist networks. Those who are indicated are those who do not pass the selection and verification. Furthermore, he also stated that his party had received a lot of input from the start so that it could further ensure that the nature of political parties that did not pass verification were clear.
He then also mentioned that there was 1 (one) political party which even had members affiliated with terrorist groups. According to him, these political parties are not included in the ranks of political participants in the upcoming 2024 General Election democratic party.
Of course, according to Komjen Boy Rafli Amar, with the finding that there are members of political parties who indicate that they are affiliated with terrorist networks, this should be a concern so that intolerant groups do not create new parties in the future.
For him, all elements of society must participate and help and guard against parties that have indicated that they are affiliated with terrorist networks, in fact, form new parties. Don’t let the administrators of new parties who may not be well known by the public turn out to have backgrounds in intolerant, radical and terrorist groups.
The head of the BNPT emphasized that indeed the background of political parties, including the background of their administrators, is a very important thing to pay attention to. Not to mention, there is also another important thing that deserves attention, namely regarding the party’s principle platform that cannot be separated from the state ideology of Pancasila.
Previously, the 57-year-old man had confirmed that there were indications that terrorists would infiltrate the democratic party in the upcoming 2024 election. He even explained that they would use a strategy called from bullets to ballots or from bullets to ballot boxes. According to him, this strategy is a strategy for intolerant groups to enter into the democratic system.
Police Commissioner General Boy Rafli Amar then explained that indeed his party, namely the BNPT, had been asked to be involved in the process of verifying a political party. They were asked to be able to provide clarification regarding whether there were indeed certain new parties whose candidates for administrators were indicated to be affiliated with terrorist network groups.
With the findings from the BNPT that it turns out that there are new parties in Indonesia which indicate that they are affiliated with terrorist networks and are trying to enter and participate in the democratic party of the 2024 election, all parties must continue to increase their vigilance.