By: Abdul Aziz) *
The campaign period, which has only a few weeks left, has intensified the campaign’s intensity. We already know that the two candidate candidates – Cawapres 2019 Presidential Election have different narratives in their political campaigns. Incumbents and challengers, each playing a campaign narrative for 2019 electoral interests. Researcher, as well as Director of the Indonesian Public Institute, Karyono Wibowo said the candidate pair of President and Vice President number 02 Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno, used pessimistic narratives in his campaign. In fact, Prabowo-Sandiaga actually realized the situation in Indonesia was not as severe as expressed in their campaign. Prabowo actually knows that Indonesia has a good future. But because of the political situation, the narrative they build is a pessimistic narrative.
One of the pessimistic narratives made by Prabowo is a statement about Indonesia having the potential to experience a food crisis in 2045. Karyono considers this pessimistic narrative legitimate to be used in political contestation. However, this narrative is closely related to the politics of anxiety. There can be anxiety in the community about something that is not necessarily going to happen. This narrative of pessimism also aims to sell the failure of political opponents. Narratives are always built up about failures. Prabowo wants to be seen as a hero by building an anxiety narrative whose ultimate goal, he wants to be seen as a hero.
While as Petahana, Candidate Pair of President and Vice President number 01 Joko Widodo (Jokowi) – Ma’ruf Amin used a style of optimistic narrative campaign. It is only natural that Jokowi – Maufuf conveyed success, achievements and innovations in his government. The narrative of the food crisis pessimism that was campaigned by Prabowo, has been answered by the government through Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman stating that Indonesia will become a world food barn by 2045 because it sees Indonesia’s food inflation falling during the Jokowi Administration. An extraordinary four-year achievement on the country’s food, jumped over 12 major countries such as Germany, China and other major countries. Not to mention the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Agriculture has continued to increase since 2013 of Rp. 900 trillion to 2018 to Rp. 1,460 trillion. The jump in Agriculture GDP is an extraordinary achievement and has been validated and signed by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).
IPB Agricultural Economic Observer, Nunung Nuryartono, believes the Minister of Agriculture (Minister of Agriculture) Amran Sulaiman and his staff are able to prepare and prepare a strategic effort for Indonesia to become the world food granary in 2045. To achieve the country’s target as the 2045 food barn, the Government must ensure all its readiness in the agricultural sector . Starting from the provision of means of production to harvest and so on. More than that, making Indonesia as a world food granary country of 2045 cannot ignore the level of welfare of farmers. Not just to increase the number of agricultural production.
This narrative of pessimism and optimism should be responded to wisely by the community. The public must realize that the two narratives are being presented for political purposes. The way to assess the contents of two different narratives is to compare them with facts. From there we can find out who is right, Challenger or Incumbent. Optimism or Pessimism?
) * The author is a Political Student of one of the Jakarta State Universities.
