Indonesia Needs Multicultural Unity Not Division by Religious Identity

Sandiaga Uno, Indonesia’s vice-presidential candidate believes he and Prabowo Subianto are the right team to unite a multicultural Indonesia, that has been for long divided by politics of religious identity. Sandiaga said they are uniting Indonesians ‘from all walks of life’ and religions by promising to focus on what voters wanted, which is a better economy. He highlighted that they are talking to all constituents.

“We believe conservatives listen to us, Prabowo’s brother is a Christian and his sister is Catholic. So you can see that Prabowo lives and breathes tolerance, lives and breathes pluralism, so we would like to unite the country.” Sandiaga portrays himself as a modern, professional and devout Muslim. And these qualities have awed younger and educated Indonesians.

Sandiaga said Prabowo had faced pressure from Muslim conservatives in the political parties backing his second bid to be president, they wanted him to run with a cleric or ulema to balance Jokowi’s choice of Ma’ruf. “But its Prabowo, he makes firm decisions. He didn’t want to bring an ulema into the race, as it will divide the country, divide the people.”

In regards to hardliners lobbying for the downfall of Chinese governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama in 2017, Sandiaga said it was not about religion but about people wanting a different type of leadership. “If you look at the exit polls, 95 per cent of Christians and non-Muslims voted for him, 99 per cent of Chinese voted for him. The Muslims were split in the middle.”