The Republic of Indonesia's Ministry of Defence’s X account, previously known as Twitter, has been reported to Indonesia's general election supervisory agency, Bawaslu.
This is after the account appeared to have breached election neutrality when it included a election hashtag promoting incumbent defence minister Prabowo Subianto, who is running for president.
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On Jan 21, the Indonesian Defence Ministry, posting under the account at @Kemhan_ RI, tweeted a thread about an Indonesian Air Force ceremony.
The ceremony involved the Indonesian Air Forces' chief of staff opening a new residential complex involving two mess halls and 22 houses at an air base in the Natuna Regency, part of the Riau Islands.
The final tweet of the thread had a number of hashtags attached, as is common practice on the defence ministries account, usually tagging the ministry, the military branch, and often Prabowo as “Menhan Prabowo”, or defence minister Prabowo.
However, Tempo reported that the hashtags included one reading #PrabowoGibran2024.
The hashtag promotes the 2024 presidential campaign of Prabowo and his vice presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the son of current President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.
Between Prabowo's position as defence minister, and the incumbent’s son as his running mate, some have worried about Indonesian state apparatus of tacitly or explicitly supporting him, as shown by this tweet.
Screenshot via X
Prabowo, Jokowi, and Gibran have all denied this on numerous occasions, but have thus far failed to end speculation.
The presence of an election slogan or hashtag on an official state body's tweet has only further added to these accusations.
Although the tweet was taken down soon after, and the thread amended as shown below, Indonesian social media users took screenshots of the offending tweet and circulated them.
Sebagai bentuk kepedulian terhadap kesejahteraan prajurit, KSAU Marsekal TNI Fadjar Prasetyo didampingi Ketum PIA Ardhya Garini, Ny. Inong Fadjar Prasetyo, meresmikan 2 mess dan 22 unit rumah tempat tinggal di Lanud Raden Sadjad Natuna, Provinsi Kepulauan Riau, Kamis (18/1). pic.twitter.com/sQDzVIpYak
— Kemhan RI (@Kemhan_RI) January 21, 2024
Social media replies and an apology?
Some users simply asked the account admin whether the hashtag was appropriate and if the ministry should be more neutral.
Screenshot via X
(All screenshots are translated by X)
Other users accused the admin of having split loyalties.
Screenshot via X
Curiously one of the replies to the replies included a supposed screenshot of the admin apologising for his mistake.
Screenshot via X
It said that the administrator claimed they meant to be neutral, but made a mistake by allowing the hashtag to be included due to an error, apparently due to autocomplete adding it in and the admin failing to check properly.
However, as of Jan. 23, that tweet is no longer present, and it is unclear if it was ever there, with no other main news outlet reporting on it.
Official responses
The Jakarta Post reports that a senior aide to Jokowi has called for civil servants at the defence ministry to maintain neutrality in the run up to the February 14th presidential election.
The aide also said that an internal probe was underway within the Ministry of Defence to look into allegations of bias.
The Post reported him as saying that during the election the civil service needed to maintain its neutrality, especially civil servants, the military and the police.
According to Tempo, the tweet was reported to Bawaslu on Jan 23, by Themis Indonesia, a law firm which also specialises in rule of law cases.
According to Themis Indonesia’s Ibnu Syamsu Hidayat, the Ministry of Defence’s public relations Brigadier General Edwin Adrian has confirmed that the tweet was from the defence ministry, and that it had been removed.
Ibnu called the tweet a form of negligence by the defence ministry’s social media admin.
Runoff
The presidential election is in full swing with candidates crisscrossing the archipelago in order to get their message out.
Prabowo is flying high in the pre-election polling, with with Reuters reporting that he has reached 48.6 per cent voter support, after having stagnated at around 45 to 46 per cent for some time.
His two competitors Anis's Badasewan and Ganjar Pranowo are polling in the low 20 per cents, and are considering an electoral pact in order to prevent Prabowo from winning.
Indonesian presidential elections require that a candidate achieve at least 50 per cent of the vote in order to avoid a second round run of election, between the top two candidates.
Although it had been believed for some time that Prabowo still had some ways to go before he could win the election outright, it appears that he is edging closer to his goal.
The Indonesian elections, which also involves voting for the legislature, will take place on February 14th. Any runoff will take place later in the year in June.
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Top image via Prabowo Subianto/Facebook & @trending_issue/X