The Role of Interfaith Leaders in Countering the Politicization of SARA, Bawaslu: For the Good of Democracy
Jakarta – The Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) of the Republic of Indonesia together with interfaith leaders continue to work together to prevent the politicization of several issues related to ethnicity, religion, race and inter-group (SARA).
Not only that, but they are also working in an integrated way to prevent identity politics from occurring during the upcoming 2024 general election.
Bawaslu member, Lolly Suhenty said that it is important to have a common meaning regarding the politicization of SARA as a mitigation effort from Bawaslu.
“It is necessary to have the same meaning of the politicization of SARA and identity politics as mitigation for Bawaslu to carry out prevention,” he said.
He hopes that by holding discussions with these interfaith leaders, his party will be able to equalize perceptions of the politicization of SARA and identity politics.
According to him, this is important to be able to create a strategy to prevent the politicization of SARA so that it does not occur in the 2024 election.
According to Lolly, the involvement of interfaith leaders in responding to the issue of racial politicization, which was supported by Bawaslu, was a step towards ensuring that the quality of democracy in Indonesia was getting better.
It doesn’t stop there, but his party is also very determined to prevent and take action if there are violations, which also indicates strengthening the quality of democracy.
“Efforts to ensure that the quality of our democracy is getting better, of course, is seen from how strong we are in preventing and taking action if there are violations,” Lolly added.
Meanwhile, another member of the Indonesian Bawaslu, Totok Hariyono, admitted that in order to be able to overcome the politicization of SARA and the practice of identity politics, his party prioritized the context of prevention.
After prevention, the next step is enforcement.
According to him, this scheme is part of the concept of mutual cooperation elections which the Indonesian Bawaslu continues to uphold.
“We do prevention first then take action, that’s part of the concept of mutual cooperation elections,” he said.
On a different occasion, the Chairman of the Mataram City branch of the Indonesian Islamic Student Movement (PC PMII), Wahyudin Safari, predicted that identity politics would always be used by certain members of the political elite during election momentum.
Therefore, according to him, support from all parties is very important to be able to jointly prevent identity politics.
“I invite all youth organizations wabil special PMII Mataram to be the front guard against the politicization of SARA,” he said.
