If Ahok wins Jakarta’s election for Governor, pluralism in Indonesia is here to stay, according to Dina Afrianty from the Australian Catholic University's Institute for Religion Politics and Society.
"If Ahok wins today, it is like sending a very positive signal to Indonesians, as well as people outside Indonesia, that we are still holding our pluralism and tolerance and moderateness of Islam," Dr Dina told SBS News.
"It is also giving a signal to the radicals that they actually are not going to win."
Not long after polls closed, private pollsters had Anies Baswedan leading with 56-57 per cent of the vote and Ahok at 41-43 per cent.
Official results are not released until May, however the pollsters are known to be accurate.
On Wednesday, conservative Islamic group Tamasya al Maidah invited people in and outside of Jakarta to to vote for Muslim candidate and former education and culture minister Anies Baswedan.
"They want to be physically there… to especially remind Muslims that you are not supposed to give your vote to non-Muslims," Dr Dina said.
But despite this pressure, Dr Dina said support for incumbent Christian-Chinese Ahok, , remained strong.
"Ahok is supported by all the major political parties in Jakarta, and he also gets support from the biggest Muslim-based organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama," she said.
She said her contacts at the Jakarta Governor's Office were also "very happy with the way things are being done by Ahok".
During his two-year tenure as Governor, Ahok has been credited for improving basic services such as access to health and supporting students with books and free transport.
But Dr Dina said his running mate Djarot Saiful Hidayat was the favourite.
"People believe he is a good guy, and the fact he is a Muslim too gives them a lot of credit," she said.
Indonesia prepares for divisive polls
Question mark over Anies
If Anies wins, Dr Dina said, "it's going to be really bad for Indonesian pluralism and for Indonesian tolerance because it means that the hardliners and the radicals are taking over the power".
"For the moderate progressive Muslim, we don't want to see this happen because that is going to give credit to the fringe groups like the Islamic Defenders Front [FPI]," she said.
"It's going to be very bad."
Dr Dina added some moderate progressives did not trust Anies.
Anies backed Indonesian President Joko Widodo during the 2014 presidential campaign. But he has since aligned with Opposition Leader Prabowo Subianto.
"[Anies] didn’t get political support from any political party. The only one that offered him [support] was [Prabowo's] Gerindra [Party]," Dr Dina said.
"Moderate progressives can see clearly... now he's saying different things."
She said Anies' policies were unclear.
"How confident are they with the policies that Anies is going to take when he becomes the governor?"
She pointed to Anies lack of clarity around the during the final debate ahead of the election.
"What they do then is to use religion because that's the only way they can bring the support from the people who don’t like Ahok, who's a Chinese and Christian," she said.
Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama (R), the current governor of Jakarta, accompanied by his son Nicholas Sean (L) and his wife Veronica Tan (C), casts his vote. Source: EPA
Are major Islamic groups upholding pluralism?
Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, also has the motto "bhinneka tunggal ika", or 'unity in diversity'.
However, Dr Dina said in the past 5-10 years she had noticed Jakartans were becoming more homogeneous, using more religious and Arabic phrases in conversation, and sending their children to Islamic schools.
"We have seen these dramatic changes in the society," she said. "Radicalism will continue to develop, to increase.”
But she believes Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisations will keep radical groups in check.
“You cannot let the groups like the FPI, who don’t have strong roots in Indonesian history, to take over the mainstream Islam,” Dr Dina said.
“The fact that we have the Nahdlatul Ulama [NU] and Muhammadiyah is a guarantee that Indonesia will continue being a moderate, tolerant Muslim nation.
“NU, for example, said they were going to protect Ahok voters if something bad happened to them. According to them, this is our pluralism so [they] are going to defend that.”
With AFP
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