Indonesia’s 2024 Presidential Election in North Sumatra: The End of a Long-Established Religious Binarism?

Two months after Indonesians voted, there remain unresolved allegations of electoral irregularities, including the probe into the alleged misuse of government funds and the general lament on the decline of democracy in the elite discourse on presidential (PE) and general elections (GE). Less attention has been paid to the role of identity politics or the lack thereof, in what many consider as the most controversial election of the post-reform era (since 1998-99). The seemingly absent role of religion as a factor in the recent elections was curious, given that religion was the most significant tool of political mobilisation in the 2019 PE.

With its 15 million residents comprising 67 per cent Muslim, 31 per cent Christian, and more than 2 per cent Buddhist believers, North Sumatra’s religious composition epitomises Indonesia’s multi-religiosity. Despite the Muslims’ predominance, the country’s fourth most populous province is a cradle of Christianity, boasting the second largest community of Christians across its 38 provinces. Adherents of different religions simultaneously belong to various ethnicities which cut across religious boundaries; North Sumatra is generally harmonious despite its diversity.

When it comes to elections, North Sumatra had voted along religious lines prior to 2024.

This author’s observations of the province’s 2018 gubernatorial and 2019 PE revealed a geographical split between predominantly Muslim districts in the eastern coast and the largely Christian districts in the western coast. The former overwhelmingly voted for candidates representing Islamic conservatism, namely contender Prabowo Subianto in the 2019 PE and winner Edy Rahmayadi for the gubernatorial election. In contrast, the western coast rallied behind those who stood for religious pluralism, namely winner Joko Widodo in 2019 and the Djarot-Sihar team which lost in 2018 but was a gubernatorial ticket which included a Christian candidate, Sihar Sitorus.

Party-wise, North Sumatra’s 2018 governor race mirrored the 2019 polarisation at the national level. The more Islamist-leaning coalition led by the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Prabowo’s Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) won decisively in Muslim districts against the pluralist coalition led by the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P). PDI-P’s candidate was Widodo, who won the Christian districts.

It was therefore peculiar for North Sumatra in 2024 when religious demography seemed to play a less significant role in forming local voters’ political preferences. Muslim and Christian districts all voted overwhelmingly for Prabowo and Gibran Rakabuming Raka, except for three Muslim districts: Tanjung Balai city, Padang Sidempuan, and Mandailing Natal. The latter voted for team Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar, the pair with the most clearly Islamic orientation.

There are some possible explanations.

First, having three pairs of candidates in PE2024 reduced the salience of religion as a mobilisation tool. Religion seems to be more useful or pronounced in a head-to-head competition.  Political polarisation – defined as the divergence of political attitudes into two (or more) mutually exclusive camps – feeds on prominent social cleavages, such as religion. Polarisation suppresses “within group” differences and simplifies the many variances that the two groups have into a single difference. Such a “difference” is then negatively charged and used to define the “Other” (that is, the competing political team or candidate). Religion or religiosity can be such a difference. The 2018 and 2019 elections in North Sumatra, where the religious difference was negatively charged and used to define two competing camps, can thus be considered as cases of deep polarisation in two-horse races.

When it comes to elections, North Sumatra had voted along religious lines prior to 2024.

In PE2024, a three-way race, one exit poll showed that the Prabowo-Gibran and Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD pairs were generally considered as representing pluralism. President Widodo supported Prabowo-Gibran; he is not known to represent Islamic conservatism. PDI-P endorsed Ganjar-Mahfud and the two men have meaningful ties with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest moderate Muslim organisation. Thus, both pairs basically shared the same pluralist support base.

In contrast, Anies-Muhaimin were seen as representing Islamic and Islamist interests. In large part, this was due to Anies’ past association with conservative Muslim organisations whose bitter religion-based campaigning led to him winning the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election. However, because Muhaimin is also chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB), a party championing moderate Islam, this likely reduced the intensity of conservative religious mobilisation in PE2024.

As a result, there was a lack of conservative religious rhetoric in the PE campaigning in North Sumatra. The author’s interviews with the Anies-Muhaimin campaign team in Medan revealed their prioritisation of governance issues rather than religion. Their slogan of “change” embodied the concern about the weakening of rule of law and the rampancy of undemocratic practices such as dynastic politics. Whether this attitude underlined a preference for a more conservative Islamic society, there was a discernible difference in the lack of religious rhetoric in the oppositional voices from PE2019 to PE2024.

Second, all three presidential candidates have Islamic credentials. Anies and Prabowo’s past association with conservative Islamic groups during past campaigns meant that they were not strangers to voters who prioritised candidates’ Islamic credentials when voting. Mahfud is well connected to the NU through his family while Ganjar’s wife is a granddaughter of a prominent NU leader.  

Third and especially important in North Sumatra, the PE candidates showed respect to the province’s Islamic leaders. Ganjar and Anies separately visited Tuan Guru Babussalam Besilam. He is the leader of Tarekat Naqsyabandiah, a prominent Islamic tasawwuf (Sufi) order, whose political preference had influenced voters in the 2018 gubernatorial election.

What is more, the Widodo government’s ban on hardline Islamic organisations has by 2024 significantly reduced their capacity and vigour to mobilise voters.

Fourth, that Prabowo, whom conservative Islamic groups wholeheartedly supported in PE2019, willingly joined his former rival Widodo’s government, likely discouraged many North Sumatran (and national) voters from voting based on religion or ideology. The vote for Prabowo-Gibran was a more “pragmatic” welfare-maximising action.

Is the absence of religion-based voting good for democracy in North Sumatra and Indonesia? On the surface, that voters seem no longer attracted to campaign narratives which undermine minority religions seems to be a positive development.

Yet the absence of religion-based voting has not meant Indonesian voters redirecting their attention to good governance, which is necessary for substantive democratic progress. Instead, voters focused on short-term gains such as Prabowo’s “free lunch” promise and apparent vote-buying practices like deliveries of food staple packages (distributed during Widodo’s visit a day after his son Gibran and Prabowo had rallies in North Sumatra). Voters even seemed to tolerate the state apparatus’ partiality and relied on false or superficial information from social media to inform their vote.

While the 2024 legislative election results show that some still opted for a legislative candidate who had helped to alleviate the province’s social issues, North Sumatrans’ and Indonesians’ voting behaviour in PE2024 raises concerns for Indonesia’s democracy going forward.

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