Indonesia | Six dead in riots; Widodo says he won’t tolerate unrest

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo yesterday that authorities have the volatile situation in the capital Jakarta under control after six people died in riots by supporters of his rival in last month’s presidential election.

The clashes began Tuesday night when supporters of former general Prabowo Subianto tried to force their way into the downtown offices of the election supervisory agency and have continued unabated since then. More than two dozen vehicles were burned as rioters took over neighborhoods in central Jakarta, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at police who responded with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

Flanked by the military chief and other top leaders, Widodo said: “I will work together with anyone to advance this country, but I will not tolerate anyone who disrupts the security, democratic processes and unity of our beloved nation.”

Subianto, a volatile ultra-nationalist politician, has refused to accept the official results of the April 17 election and instead declared himself the winner. The Election Commission on Tuesday said that Widodo, the first Indonesian president from outside the Jakarta elite, had won 55.5% of the vote, securing the moderate technocrat a second term. Subianto, an elite figure from a wealthy family connected to former dictator Suharto, also lost to Widodo in 2014. He has made four unsuccessful bids for the presidency since Suharto was ousted in 1998.

“The bottom line is the people who are protesting and rioting in the past 24 hours represent a small minority of Indonesian voters and a small minority of Indonesian Muslims,” said Alexander Arifanto, an Indonesian politics expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

“The vast majority of both clearly accepted the election results. By tacitly backing the protesters, Prabowo has lost any remaining legitimacy he had left and clearly shows his true colors as a narcissistic New Order-era relic,” Arifanto said, referring to the Suharto era. .

Rudiantara, the communications and information technology minister, said features of social media including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp will be restricted on a temporary basis to prevent the spread of hoaxes and inflammatory content. He said messaging systems will still work for text and voice messages but photos and videos will be blocked or slowed.

National police chief Tito Karnavian said the people who died in the rioting were hit by gunshots or blunt devices.  Authorities are still investigating the death causes and are not ruling out the involvement of third parties acting as provocateurs.

“There are attempts to create martyrs, blaming security officials for building public anger,” he said.

The rioting in Jakarta was planned and not spontaneous, according to police. Officers found an ambulance filled with stones and some of the dozens of people arrested had envelopes of money, said national police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal. Many of those arrested and come from outside Jakarta, he said.

The government had deployed some 50,000 police and soldiers in Jakarta in anticipation of protests following the official election results. Many residents have left the city and parts of the downtown are closed to traffic with the election supervisory agency and Election Commission barricaded with razor wire. Stephen Wright & Fadlan Syam, Jakarta, AP