Negative sentiment drags Ahok down

Massive news buzz be it positive or negative in the world wide web and news media does not necessary turn into votes, at least for the the outgoing Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama or fondly called as Ahok.

Instead, his competitor Anies Baswedan claimed a decisive landslide victory.

Education activist who later joined President Joko Widodo’s cabinet as Education and Cultural Minister for two years, Anies Baswedan, secured his position as the mayor after quick vote results showed that he garnered the majority votes from all six Jakarta sub-regions, including’s Ahok’s stronghold.

Data from Google Trends, which study the internet search trends, shows the first Chinese-Christian mayor for the capital of the world’s largest Muslim population, received the most query in the Internet, far surpassing Anies, making the latter an underdog.

This data correlates with Indonesia Indikator which study media coverage for both parties. The data shows Ahok received 66 percent media coverage than Anies.

In the last 90 days, there was only one time, on April 11, which saw the surge of interest to Anies in Google Search, which correlates to the day his cousin, Novel Baswedan was attacked by unidentified individual at a local mosque.

Novel, is an officer with the Indonesia Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) was reported to be handling few high level cases and had received five threats against him.

However did this hike up the education activist’s ‘overnight’ popularity, enabling him to win the most contested local government position?

IndonesiaBarometer, a political survey agency in Indonesia suggest that Anies’s victory was contributed by Ahok’s inability to secure his strongholds.

Meanwhile, Lingkaran Survei Indonesia (LSI) founder Denny Januar Ali quoted three main reasons behind Anies’s landslide victory.

Other than solid support from his supporters, it was also prompted by anti-Ahok campaign.

“Many turn over to vote for Anies just because they did not want Ahok to win.” said Denny as quoted by Indonesia’s DetikNews portal.

He said, according to survey, there was a lot of negativity sentiments against Ahok.

Meanwhile, foreign media like Financial Times warned that this election results mirrors the victory for conservative Islamists and a defeat for pluralism in the world's largest Muslim nation.

“Whatever the concrete formations are, the 2019 presidential race is certain to be defined by the same pluralist-Islamist sentiment that decided the Jakarta election,” said Marcus Mietzner, a professor at Australian National University as quoted by FT.