The timing could not have been worse. While the majority of people in Indonesia had barely recovered from the horror of another massive earthquake and rescue workers were still digging through the rubble looking for survivors, people were sidetracked by a spectacle of shame that would live in infamy.

It’s one of those moments when politics rears its ugly head and we are once again reminded that politicians will do the worst things imaginable to score political points.

Political activist Ratna Sarumpaet has been known for her histrionics, which she has executed mostly to draw people’s attention to her staunch opposition to incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Most of her antics have been petty, like when she was caught on camera threatening city parking officers who impounded her car, in April, over a parking infraction.

Most political watchers experienced schadenfreude when one of her political stunts backfired: She turned up at a meeting between Minister Luhut Pandjaitan and some family members of those who had perished in a boat accident on Lake Toba, North Sumatra.

When she tried to intervene in the conversation, she was scolded by the bereaved family members and escorted out.

She was accused of exploiting the tragedy for her own political benefit.

What she did earlier this month was a new low, even for her.

It began with a photo of her swollen face circulating online, followed by her claim that she was assaulted for political reasons.

Many in the camp of President Widodo’s main rival, Prabowo Subianto, quickly jumped to her defense.

A number of senior politicians from Prabowo’s Gerindra Party, including deputy speakers of the House of Representatives, quickly backed Ratna’s claim and deemed the “assault” politically motivated, saying Ratna had long been targeted for her vocal opposition toward the president.

The most embarrassing episode was when Prabowo himself chimed in.

After personally meeting Ratna, Prabowo denounced the attack and promised that he would talk with the national police chief to express his grievances about the “human rights abuse.”

The only problem is that the “assault” never took place and Ratna was lying.

Her swollen face turned out to be the result of a liposuction procedure she had undergone in a hospital in Central Jakarta.

Politicians lie all the time, but this liposuction scandal is an abomination simply because it took away our attention from what mattered most.

The airtime and discussion on social media should have been devoted to helping the quake victims in Central Sulawesi, but instead we wasted energy on finding out if Ratna regularly went under the knife or if she paid for the procedure using money donated for victims of the said boat accident.

But desperate times call for desperate measures and politicians do what they must.

A quick look at current public opinion polls can shed light on the shameful episode.

In its latest public opinion survey, a highly regarded Jakarta-based pollster found that incumbent President Widodo has an unassailable lead with 60.2 percent, while his challenger Prabowo, a former Indonesian military general, had his popularity slide even further -- down from 33.2 percent in May to 28.7 percent in September this year.

To make things worse for Prabowo, almost 63 percent of voters thought President Widodo has done a good job of improving the country’s security while another 40 percent think that the country’s economy is in better shape compared with the same period last year.

Given the current state of the race, it is easy to see why Prabowo and his team were quick to believe Ratna’s assault claim.

The brouhaha over Ratna’s liposuction scandal was in fact the biggest story involving Prabowo since the start of the presidential campaigning period, which kicked off Sept. 23.

In fact, the political campaigning has been a low-key affair and -- beyond the news of Prabowo and his running mate, businessman and the erstwhile deputy governor of Jakarta Sandiaga Uno, visiting traditional Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) -- there’s nothing that the national media could say about them.

While the pair was languishing, Widodo was basking in the success of the Asian Games, where he managed to paint himself as a youthful leader of a young nation trying to achieve global success.

If anything, throughout 2018 Widodo has masterfully waged a public relations campaign that paints him as the only politician who can lead the country for the next five years, until his second term expires in 2024.

This campaign has been so successful that President Widodo was reluctant to make any move that he sensed could hurt his record.

Accordingly, the government’s flip-flop on raising the price of fuel was the result of careful consideration.

Throughout his tenure, Widodo has gone the extra mile to make sure the prices of basic goods remained at reasonable levels, even if that meant the government had to pay for hefty subsidies.

The stakes have never been this high.

For both sides.


M. Taufiqurrahman
M. Taufiqurrahman is managing editor of the Jakarta Post in Indonesia. The Asian Writers’ Circle is a series of columns on global affairs written by top editors and writers from members of the Asia News Network and published in newspapers, as well as on websites and social media platforms, across the region. -- Ed.