The Politization of Identity Politics in Medan Mayor Election 2020

Saipul Bahri and Heri Kusmanto

Departement Political Science, FISIP Universitas Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

Keywords: Politicization of Politics, Elections, Competition.

Abstract: This article discusses the politicization that occurred in the electoral competition in the 2020 Regional Head

Election of Medan City. In the midst of the euphoria of democracy, the post-conflict local election was faced

with the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization occurred in the midst of the people of Medan City.

Polarization in electoral politics in Medan City in 2020, which in many aspects is largely determined by media

framing and the interaction of actors in social media. Since 2014, the 2017 and 2019 DKI Jakarta post-conflict

local elections, Indonesia has experienced the politicization of identity politics to an alarming degree

whenever there is an election for executive leadership at the national, provincial and district/city levels. This

identity politicization tends to have not received adequate attention in political studies. This paper presents

preliminary observations about the politicization of political identity in Medan City. The results of this study

found that national issues, such as cases of religious blasphemy, radicalism, became the primacy of candidates

as political instruments. This article concludes that identity politics in the 2020 Medan City post-conflict local

election takes the form of national issues rather than the identity of the local context. With qualitative research

methods using interviews and observation.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Medan City General Election which gave birth to

two pairs of candidates Bobby-Aulia and Akhyar-

Salman gave a signal to the strengthening of political

entities in Medan City. Identity politics in Indonesia

has long been an interesting topic of discussion

among social scientists. The issue of identity is very

influential and becomes the dominant thing in

determining people's choices in general elections

(elections) in Indonesia, there is a polarization whose

priorities are based on ethnicity and religion. Geertz

(1963) in his writings on "primordial sentiment"

states that the study of identity politics will continue

to receive attention, especially with regard to ethnic

identity, religion, gender, indigenous peoples

(indigenous communities), and local communities (in

Buchari)., 2014).

Identity politicization is defined as an attempt to

use, exploit, or manipulate identity, whether based on

religion, ethnicity, gender or adherents of a certain

ideology to generate opinion or stigma from the

public with the aim of political interests. Identity is

then used to achieve certain interests of the group or

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1370-7876

individual (Burke, 2003). Democracy provides space

for each individual and identity group in order to win

the electoral competition. However, the politicization

of identity also has the opportunity to weaken

democratic values so that it can lead to political

instability (Herdiansah, 2017).

Identity politicization also shows an attitude of

political priority or special behavior to a group of

people who come from a certain region, ethnicity or

race. The process of recruiting leaders in the regions

tends to be based on primordial parameters, which

facilitates the development of regional and tribal

spirit (Jumadi and Yaakop, 2013). The politicization

of identity based on primordial is not only displayed

by candidates for leaders or candidates for regional

heads, but for voters it becomes one of the important

considerations in the political behavior of voters.

When identity politics is manipulated by the interests

of the political elite, there are several risks that can

threaten the life of democracy. Moreover, in a state of

ethnic heterogeneity which is often an obstacle to

democratic consolidation (Birnir, 2007).

After the reform of identity politics, they are faced

with several problems such as identity crises,

Bahri, S. and Kusmanto, H.

The Politization of Identity Politics in Medan Mayor Election 2020.

DOI: 10.5220/0011511600003460

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social and Political Development (ICOSOP 2022) - Human Security and Agile Government, pages 74-78

ISBN: 978-989-758-618-7; ISSN: 2975-8300

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

horizontal conflicts, multicultural conflicts, national

disintegration, political instability, violence and

crime as symptoms of a multidimensional crisis. The

other most crucial thing is the fading of national

values and the nation's cultural values. Plurality in the

fields of culture, race, ethnicity, religion, language,

and resources is a challenge for Indonesia's national

identity. If it can be managed properly, then pluralism

will bring prosperity and strengthen unity and

integrity. However, if it cannot be managed properly,

pluralism has the potential to cause national

disintegration. One important note relates to the 2020

Medan City post-conflict local election that the issue

of primordial identity related to the two major

religions has a very strong influence in determining

candidate pairs (Negong, 2017). The election of the

Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Medan in 2020 which

was attended by 2 (two) pairs of candidates, namely

Bobby Nasution-Aulia Rahman and Akhyar

Nasution-Salman Alfarisi which was won by the

Bobby-Aulia pair (Medan KPUD Data, 2020).

Bobby-Aulia's victory in 15 (fifteen) sub-districts

(Medan Kota, Medan Sunggal, Medan Helvetia,

Medan Denai, West Medan, Medan Deli, Medan

Tuntungan, Medan Belawan, Medan Amplas, Medan

Area, Medan Johor, Medan Marelan, Medan

Labuhan, Medan Tembung, Medan Polonia) is very

interesting because the previous victories in these 15

sub-districts have always been won by the Prosperous

Justice Party (PKS).

This shows that there is a degradation of political

support in the 2020 Medan City election, in which the

candidate for Mayor Bobby Nasution with the

surname Nasution, while the political behavior of

choosing the people of Medan City is still very much

influenced by the issue of primordial identity based

on religion and ethnicity. The Bobby-Aulia pair

before becoming a candidate for Mayor of Medan

determined by the Medan City Regional General

Election Commission (KPUD) were young people

who had never entered the political arena. Bobby

Nasution's presence in the political arena cannot be

separated from national issues.

Unwittingly, national issues also affect the

contestation of the 2020 Medan City General

Election. The influence of national issues such as the

Ahok case (Ahok effect) which was developed

because it was politicized based on primordial use by

politicians in DKI Jakarta as a result gave birth to

identity-based primordial sentiments among the

people of Medan City. especially religious

sentiments, the majority of which are 90% Muslim,

Bobby Nasution, who is supported by the PDIP party,

which is connoted as a blasphemy party. The rise of

this primordial sentiment since the Ahok issue in the

2017 DKI Jakarta gubernatorial election was used by

politicians in the city of Medan to gain victory by

using various primordial-based identity issues as a

political campaign tool to achieve victory. Research

on identity politics in a democratic country in

Indonesia has been carried out by many researchers

and the academic community. However, research

related to the use of identity issues carried out by

Bobby-Aulia in an effort to win the 2020 post-conflict

local election has not been done much. Based on the

foregoing, the authors focus on the research on

politicization of politics in the Regional Head General

Election of Medan City and the winning team in

managing identity issues to strengthen their political

discourse, recruitment of community leaders,

socialization of political safaris and campaigns as

well as identity issues capitalized in planning for the

win, namely analyze how the use of identity issues as

a winning effort by Bobby-Aulia.

2 METHOD

This study uses a qualitative method with primary

data obtained from each individual or group /

Winning Team or institution that has a role in the

victory of candidate Bobby-Aulia in the use of

identity issues as an effort to win in the 2020 Medan

City election. also supported from secondary data

sources such as books, journals, statistical data, mass

media reports relevant to research studies, general

guidelines, study results from various literatures and

previous studies relevant to the research theme to

sharpen the credibility of the research. The data

obtained were then verified and analyzed by

descriptive analysis method. Data verification is

carried out through triangulation techniques, namely

comparing the data obtained so that they come to the

belief that the data obtained are valid.

3 RESULT AND DISSCUSION

The political configuration of the Medan City post-

conflict local election is closely related to the

composition of the population of Medan City, the

majority of whom are Moslems reaching 80%

consisting of Catholics amounting to 8%, Protestants

7%, Hindus 3% and Buddhists 2% (BPS City Medan,

2019). Islam is the majority in several sub-districts

including Denai District, Johor, Medan City, Medan

Helvetia, Medan Baru, Medan Selayang, Medan

The Politization of Identity Politics in Medan Mayor Election 2020

Belawan, West Medan, East Medan, Medan Amplas,

Medan Marelan, Medan Area, Medan Maimun,

Medan Deli, Medan Labuhan, Medan Struggle and

Medan Polonia. The picture above shows the

geographical conditions of Medan City which affect

the sociological conditions and consequently gives

rise to political practices in making combinations

between regions that represent matters of religious

and ethnic ethnicity, especially in the Medan Mayor

Election.

The practice of religion-based identity politics is

quite common in Medan City which is based on

political parties. During the three elections for Mayor

of Medan after post-reformation, ethnic and religious

factors had a very strong influence in determining

candidates at the level of political parties and people's

choices. However, religious identity politics and

political parties in Medan City, where the majority of

the population is Muslim as a basis, are difficult to

detect in large-scale political activities such as the

Jokowi grand political campaign in Medan on April

10, 2019. Generally, the exploitation of identity

politics based on religion and political parties occurs

in small-scale and local campaign activities that

escape media coverage. The importance of identity in

turn encourages political parties to look for

candidates for mayor of Medan City without giving

up the image of representing the identity of the

majority regions such as ethnicity and religion as a

way of transformation in various political strategies.

Ethnic combinations such as Batak and Malay and

Javanese are associated with the majority religion in

Medan, namely Islam. The simultaneous regional

elections in 2020 will be held simultaneously on

December 9, 2020. The results of the 2020 Medan

Mayor Election were won by candidate pair number

2 Bobby-Aulia getting 393,327 votes with a vote

percentage of 53.5%. Akhyar-Salman's vote gain was

only 46.5% (Medan City KPUD Data, 2020).

4 IDENTITY

INSTRUMENTALISM

The results obtained by Bobby-Aulia have shown that

the strategies carried out by the candidates,

supporting parties, and campaign teams in their

efforts to win the 2020 Medan City election were

quite successful. Supporting parties such as PDIP,

Golkar, NasDem, Golkar, Gerindra, PSI, PAN, PPP

and Hanura contributed a lot. These eight parties

work together in a joint winning team. The purpose

of the merger is to make the program implementation

more focused, in accordance with the strategy of the

candidate pair that has been mutually agreed with the

Bobby-Aulia Winning Team in an effort to achieve

victory.

Based on the results of the research, the Bobby-

Aulia candidate pair strategy has two strategies,

namely conventional and specific winning planning.

The conventional winning planning strategy includes

the recruitment of candidate pairs and political

socialization, strengthening the vision and mission

discourse, forming a winning team and volunteer

team as well as the use of mass media and social

media in promoting candidate pairs. Meanwhile, the

strategy of the candidate pair Bobby-Aulia which

made a major contribution was the use of religious

identity issues from national issues which were

capitalized by the candidate pairs in conducting

political socialization and campaigning.

The use of identity issues such as the Ahok case

(Ahok effect), the 212 Movement, the issue of the

establishment of a Khilafah State, and the issue of the

Jakarta Charter. The strategy of this candidate pair

became the strength of the candidate pair Bobby-

Aulia in achieving victory (Tolo, 2019). In the 2020

Medan Mayor Election, of the two pairs of

candidates, geographically Akhyar-Salman is a

representation of the City of Medan. Akhyar Nasution

as the incumbent and Salman who has a background

as a member of the Medan DPRD and was elected as

Deputy Chair of the North Sumatra Provincial DPRD

from the Electoral District of Medan City. The

recruitment of candidate pairs who appear in the 2020

Medan City election in this study does represent a mix

of ethnicity and religion. Ethnic combinations such as

the Batak and Malay ethnicities which are then

combined with religion continue to color the entire

process of recruiting candidates for the Mayor of

Medan so far after the reform period (Medan KPUD

Data, 2020).

The winning team from the PDIP Party said that

if the Gerindra party supports the Bobby-Aulia

package, the combined number of seats for the

coalition parties and will be included in the

nomination requirements is at least 79%. Many of

these considerations made Aulia Rahman chosen to

accompany Bobby Nasution, one of which was based

on primordial considerations as a strategy and the

main contribution of strategy in an effort to achieve

victory from the Medan Malays. The phenomenon of

combining candidate pairs based on primordial

considerations is part of a winning planning strategy

that can still be called identity politics. This is a

benchmark for the use of identity politics because the

voting community in Medan City still chooses

ICOSOP 2022 - International Conference on Social and Political Development 4

candidates based on primordial factors. For example,

the representation of the candidate pair must be

Muslim because the majority of the religion in Medan

City is Islam, therefore the image that is built has a

representation of the majority Muslim voice.

Automatically has an effect on boosting the

electability of the candidate pair's package. And vice

versa in North Medan and South Medan. Voters

prefer to see figures based on ethnic similarities and

that often happened in the previous elections for the

Mayor of Medan.

This is as stated by Heriansyah (2020) that the

process of recruiting leaders in the regions tends to be

based on the parameters of primordialism, which

facilitates the spirit of regionalism and ethnicity.

Theoretically, the primordial approach suggests that

the individual interests of religious members are

made to support the interests of the group and

leadership to strengthen the religious base as a source

of social power. Political socialization of the

candidate pair Bobby-Aulia in the form of religious

and ethnic approaches when conducting a political

safari around the city of Medan, sometimes using the

attributes or idioms of the local culture visited.

According to the researcher, political

socialization activities that are wrapped in the

politicization of identity are a natural thing,

happening anywhere because of respect for local

culture. The most important thing is not to harm

society in general by violating cultural norms or

conducting black campaigns against other candidates

(Negong, 2017). The use of cultural and religious

idioms that the Bobby-Aulia candidate pair

accidentally uses has a positive nuance for the

common interest between the community and the

Bobby-Aulia candidate pair to erode the issue of

national sentiment that gives a message of unity in

diversity. In the process of selecting regional heads,

the politicization of identity cannot be avoided. The

most important thing is to be aware that there is a

platform that Pancasila and the democratic system are

final, compatible with the Indonesian nation, which

consists of various ethnicities.

If you violate the law, you are against the state.

When a candidate pair accidentally uses symbols of

local religion and culture, then the community feels

that their values, norms, and cultural symbols are

respected and feel proud because the candidate pair

who conducts the campaign and socialization is a

representation of them (Negong, 2017). Every area in

Medan City has a variety of unique dances that are

usually used as a pick-up ritual or a symbol of

receiving guests. This dance is usually played by

several male and female dancers with very typical

Deli Malay movements. This dance is often

performed at various events such as welcoming

important guests, cultural festivals and performing

arts. Likewise, ikat weaving is a cultural artifact that

binds people in a strong inner bond of brotherhood.

Weaving is not just an inanimate object that doesn't

communicate anything.

However, ikat weaving has become a medium of

communication for humanity, which is so often

involved in intertwining the kinship of the community

in general in the city of Medan. Ikat cloth also has an

extraordinary dimension of respect for others who

usually welcome guests, especially regional or central

officials. The use of traditional and cultural idioms

that occurred in addition to that, the 2020 Medan

Mayor candidate Bobby-Aulia was welcomed by the

Deli Malay traditional dance by the community in the

form of regional language narratives by

representatives of traditional leaders. For example,

the Malay King wore oversized clothes to Bobby-

Aulia, who had just been named a young Medan

Malay figure. Bobby-Aulia was also given a souvenir

in the form of a sandalwood statue which is the result

of the natural wealth of the area as a symbol of the

bond that remains strong and strong as a leader who

prioritizes the needs of the community.

In relation to the instrumentalism approach, in the

2020 Medan Mayor election. Actually, the

politicization of religion-based identity in Medan

City is difficult to detect in large-scale political

activities. Generally, the exploitation of religion-

based identity politics occurs on a small scale and

escapes media coverage. Based on the results of

interviews with all the winning teams, especially in

the 2020 Medan Mayor election, the winning team

acknowledged that the politicization of identity

occurs anywhere, intentionally or unintentionally,

even though it only uses religious and ethnic

attributes or symbols, theoretically politics can also

be said to be politicized. identity. This religion-based

identity politics in Medan City is used by several

parties, especially politicians, to reap their economics

and political interests. As stated by Brown (1989) that

ethnicity is a form of association used by individuals

in pursuing their interests related to economic and

political gain.

The phenomenon of the use of identity politics in

the form of identity issues based on religion, clan and

ethnicity used during the 2020 Medan Mayoral

election is a link in the movement carried out in

Jakarta in 2016, known as the "212 Movement". The

212 movement was also encouraged by one of the

Islamic Defenders Front Organizations (FPI) and they

are affiliated with Anis-Sandi. The aim of the 212

The Politization of Identity Politics in Medan Mayor Election 2020

Movement is to demand the non-active Governor of

DKI Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok), to

honorably resign from his position as Governor of

DKI Jakarta in 2017 (Tolo, 2019). The Ahok effect

and the 212 Movement had a significant influence on

the electability of the candidate pairs Bobby-Aulia

and Akhyar-Salman in Medan City. The Akhyar-

Salman campaign was greatly assisted by the strength

of the issue of the DKI effect, especially when

Akhyar-Salman presented Ustadz Abdul Somad.

In the 2020 Medan Mayor election, religion-based

identity politicization is difficult to detect in large-

scale political activities. Generally, the exploitation

of religion-based identity politics is prominent but

occurs on a small scale. The prominent religious

factor is not at the domestic/local level in Medan City,

but the prominent religious factor is more universal at

the national level, namely, overall it alludes to the

Muslims of the '212 Movement, the Jakarta Charter,

and the Establishment of a Khilafah State'. Based on

the results of interviews with all the winning teams,

especially in the 2020 Medan City Mayor election,

the winning team acknowledged that the

politicization of identity occurs anywhere,

intentionally or unintentionally, even though it only

uses religious and ethnic attributes or symbols,

theoretically it can also be said as identity

politicization (Tolo, 2019).

5 CONCLUSIONS

Through the perspective of the instrumentalism

approach, the Bobby-Aulia winning team saw a good

opportunity to increase Bobby-Aulia's electability.

Utilization of the management of religious identity

issues was involved as a political strategy of victory

manipulated by the winning team because of national

problems such as the Ahok case (Ahok effect) and the

'212 Movement' which had the potential to create

national disintegration. This is very influential

because the people of Medan City, who are

predominantly Muslim and the candidates who are

presented at the Medan City election are assumed to

be very close to blasphemers and parties supporting

religious blasphemers. The politics of religious and

ethnic identity in the 2020 Medan Mayor election is

not prominent at the domestic/local level in Medan

City but is more prominent at the national/universal

level. The politicization of religion-based identity and

ethnicity at the local identity level did not have a

major effect on increasing Akhyar-Salman's

electability, only when the combination of candidate

pairs recruited based on religious identity according

to the representation of the majority of the people of

Medan City, although in the end it was won by the

Bobby-Aulia pair.

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