Wooing the Muslim heartland

Walking tall: Joko interacting with supporters at a carnival during a campaign rally in Tangerang, Banten province. — Reuters

GARUT: When Wawan Setiawan, a volunteer for Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s re-election campaign, goes door-to-door in this conservative part of Java, his opening line is: “If you hear he is anti-Islam or a communist, remember, it’s all lies.”The 41-year-old is one of thousands of volunteers – armed with T-shirts, stickers, pins, and other giveaways – seeking to bolster support for Widodo in the teeming villages of West Java, the most populous province and a key battleground in the April 17 vote in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

Widodo’s aides say such mobilising of grassroots support and canvassing of thousands of Islamic boarding schools in this and other conservative provinces is crucial to prevent a repeat of 2014, when a smear campaign accusing Widodo of being a bad Muslim beholden to Chinese interests nearly cost him the presidency, with the heaviest losses in West Java.