Revisiting Political Polarisation in Indonesia: A Case Study of Jakarta’s Electorate

Abstract

This article discusses the nature and extent of ideological predispositions of the Jakarta electorate. Using a survey of a random sample of voting-aged Jakarta population, this research attempts to explore how polarised the voters are and how their ideological proclivities are related to their political alignment. The distribution of the ideological map shows that voters are generally divided on political secularism and economic dimensions. On the political secular dimension, Anies-Prabowo’s voters tend to support the larger role of Islam and Muslim clerics in politics while Ahok-Jokowi’s are resistant to the increasing role of Islam and its clerics in politics. On the economic dimension, Anies-Prabowo’s voters are more inclined towards economic nationalist views while Ahok-Jokowi’s are more tolerant of economic liberalism. However, further multi-variate tests reveal that the political affiliation drives the ideological cleavage in political secularism dimension only. Meanwhile, in the economic dimension, the main driver is party identification.