There are latent dangers that accompany the course of holding elections, one of which is identity politics, where this must be watched out for because it can lead to conflicts between communities that are not for a moment.
Imam Pituduh as Secretary of the Islamic Organization Friendship Institute (LPOI) said that identity politics is a latent danger that needs to be watched out for together, especially ahead of the political momentum, namely the 2024 presidential election. This is because identity politics can be an accelerator for the collapse of social constructions that give rise to prolonged horizontal conflicts.
Imam said that we need to be aware of the latent danger of politicization of religion, because identity politics and politicized religion are very easy formulas for radicalizing and misleading society.
He continued, an inattentive attitude towards identity politics actually opens up wide opportunities for the development of pseudo-games that colonize people’s way of thinking and seem to be a normal thing, so that such practices are also used by interested parties as a promising commodity.
The man who is familiarly called Gus Imam said, Politics wrapped in religion has always been a favorite commodity to be traded in a society where the majority is religious. Religious arguments are always used as a justification for taking political steps for those who sell identity politics and fry religion as a commodity.
Not only that, the man who was the director of the film ‘Super Santri: Conspiracy to Rule the Country’ also saw that the practice of identity politics was getting worse after changes in people’s social lives that were attached to social media. Attacks and bombardments on issues of religious politicization and radical ideology were also moving massively. through online channels.
He explained that the Buzzers and radical robot groups were always trying to move massively to control digital channels. They use neuroscience to target and influence young people and the majority of voters, so that they can be influenced, infiltrated and controlled by people’s subconscious and lifestyle .
So, in order to alert and prepare society for the rise of identity politics issues in the future, he believes that it is necessary to promote understanding of the issue of politicization of religion and national insight so that society has the immunity and power to fight against all forms of radical ideology and the politicization of religion that go hand in hand.
The community as the vanguard of resistance must be strengthened in unity of command and equipped with strong national insight immunity and armed with a moderate, friendly, peaceful and tolerant religious understanding. Because this resistance cannot be done alone.
On a different occasion, Bambang Soesatyo as Chairman of the MPR RI reminded all parties to warn against identity politics in the 2024 elections. This dirty method is not new and has occurred at previous democratic parties. He also highlighted money politics which is still a big problem in political contestation. Referring to the results of the mapping of election vulnerabilities and elections regarding money politics carried out by Bawaslu in 2023, there are five most vulnerable provinces that need to be closely monitored.
The five regions are North Maluku with a score of 100, Lampung with a score of 55.56. West Java scored 50, Banten scored 44.44 and North Sulawesi scored 38.89.
If we look at the aggregation of each district/city, Papua Mountains is the province with the highest level of vulnerability to money politics. All districts there are in the vulnerable category. The nine provinces under Mountainous Papua are Central Sulawesi, DKI Jakarta, West Kalimantan, Banten, Lampung, West Papua, West Kawa, Riau Islands and North Maluku.
He also highlighted the weak supervision of the people after the election. In fact, this supervision functions as a control over the power of elected officials, preventing abuse of power, and ensuring the implementation of policies that are in accordance with the public interest. However, in its implementation, supervision by citizens tends to weaken after elections are held.
The man who is familiarly called Bamsoet also said that holding elections in Indonesia is very complex and even very expensive. Where it is recorded that the national permanent voter list (DPT) has reached almost 205 million voters with 20,462 seats in legislative institutions which will be contested by more than 200 thousand legislative candidates. He also reminded that the problem is related to democratic regression, even though election management in Asia is one of the most organized and often used as a reference.
The public needs to realize that identity politics that utilize religious symbols is very vulnerable to dividing the unity of the people and endangering the integrity of the nation. One example of division or polarization due to identity politics occurred in 2019, and even now this atmosphere still exists.
It is certainly hoped that the presidential candidates will be able to maintain an atmosphere of peace by presenting positive programs to each other, so that the public can see that what they are campaigning for is suitable. The public must also be intelligent and not be influenced by various kinds of misleading information such as hoaxes and disinformation as well as various issues that can divide national unity.
