Jokowi Lashes Out at TVOne’s PKI Sympathizer Label

A police line around TVOne’s Yogyakarta bureau, which was vandalized by supporters over allegations of communism. (JG Photo/Boy T. Harjanto)

Bandung/Jakarta. Presidential candidate Joko Widodo has lambasted suggestions that he is a communist sympathizer, made on a television station owned by an ally of rival candidate Prabowo Subianto.

“This is a very serious insult for me personally, for my parents and my family,” Joko said at a press conference in Bandung on Thursday.

Joko, who has been a target of mounting smear campaigns and false accusations about his political views, his religious beliefs and even his ethnicity in days leading up to the July 9 election, said he had been trying hard remain patient and practice self-restraint throughout the campaign.

“We have ignore [the accusations], but then they only became bigger. The last one had to do with the PKI,” he said, referring to the long-banished Indonesian Communist Party.

“They also [at one point] touched on the subject of my parents. I think I have been too kind and patient,” he said.

He emphasized that he had been transparent and honest about his family background and his political stance.

“The media knows my family, my house, who my parents are — what is there to explain? I have been very open, I hope the media will not provoke anyone,” Joko said.

Jakarta-based broadcaster TVOne aired a news package on Wednesday in which one of its sources accused Joko’s party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), of comprising of former members of the PKI, as well as being a party disliked by the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police.

TVOne is owned by the family of the Bakrie family, led Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of the Golkar Party — one of the seven parties in Prabowo’s coalition.

Shortly after midnight on Thursday, a PDI-P-affiliated organization called the Volunteers for Democratic Struggle (Repdem) rallied outside TVOne’s headquarter in Pulogadung, East Jakarta, in protest at the station’s report. Another group vandalized the station’s Yogyakarta bureau.

Repdem chairman and PDI-P member Masinton Pasaribu, who said the Jakarta protest was initiated by the organization and not the PDI-P, demanded that the TV station clarify the accusation.

“How TVOne put it [the report] on a news program is libel against the PDI-P. We are very offended and disappointed with the defamation. It’s the same as the stigma spread during the New Order era,” he said, referring to the tactic practiced by the regime of the late strongman Suharto of labeling anyone who was critical of the government a communist sympathizer.

Masinton also accused TVOne of being biased in its coverage, and said it had no right to “abuse” the public broadcasting frequency to “spread lies.”

Repdem said it would report TVOne to the Press Council, the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) and the Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu).

“Let the Press Council and the KPI hand down the punishment,” Masinton said.

Megawati Soekarnoputri, the PDI-P chairwoman, whose own father, former president Sukarno, was deposed by Suharto on accusations that he was too soft on the PKI, lamented what she called a smear campaign and urged restraint by all sides with less than a week to go before the election.

“To all members of the press, we encourage collaboration so that the press can really be fair and speak the truth to the people,” she said on Thursday.

“The one-sided reports attacking Joko and linking him to communism are a cruel accusation.”

She also called on all PDI-P members and supporters of Joko not to rise to the bait and to keep the peace.

“We should keep our dignity throughout, yet keep pushing for the enforcement of the law through the police, prosecutors, Bawaslu, KPI and the Press Council,” she said.

Meanwhile, TVOne public relations managed Raldi Roy said the company had taken duly noted the protests and conveyed the complaints to the station’s editorial team.

“The aspiration from our PDI-P friends is critical and I have taken note of this,” Raldi said.

“We have corresponded with the PDI-P and we have clarified the news report. We will not air [the package in question] any more.”

However, Fadli Zon, a deputy chairman of Prabowo’s Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), said the fact that the PDI-P supporters had vandalized TVOne’s Yogyakarta office was in itself “a communist strategy.”

“The act of protesting at TVOne headquarters as instructed by PDI-P secretary general Tjahjo Kumolo is a communist strategy. This ruins democracy,” he tweeted on Thursday.

“Tjahjo’s strategy is a panicked reaction. The press is an integral pillar of this nation’s democracy. To intimidate the press is to go against democracy.”

Djayadi Hanan, the research director at Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting, a pollster, agreed that the action of the Joko supporters in Yogyakarta should be condemned.

“Vandalizing the offices of a television station is never the right thing to do,” he told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday. “The group should have resorted to a more civil process for redress, by asking for clarification directly rather than taking the law into their own hands.”

Djayadi warned that the attack could hurt Joko’s poll ratings, especially given how fast Prabowo was catching up, with most pollsters putting the gap between the two candidates in the single digits.

By ID/Novy Lumanauw, SP/Hotman Siregar & Vita A.D. Busyra on 10:05 am Jul 04, 2014