The announcement of three presidential and vice-presidential candidate pairs contesting in the 2024 election has spurred political parties to conduct extensive campaigns.
Social media, as a significant platform for public discussion, has showcased high political party activities. Interestingly, parties that won the 2019 election have exhibited different activities compared to other parties.
The Center for Digital Society (CfDS) at the UGM Faculty of Social and Political Sciences released its research on political party activities on social media platform X from January 2022 to September 2023, entitled “The Twists and Turns of Political Parties Welcoming the 2024 Elections” on Tuesday (October 31).
“We selected five political parties that won the elections in 2019, namely PDI Perjuangan, Gerindra, Golkar, PKB, and Nasdem. We want to see how they have changed over time, especially nearing the upcoming election,” mentioned Arga Pribadi Irmawan, a lecturer at the Department of Politics and Government.
The research is motivated by the parties’ tendency to be called the “secret garden of politics,” indicating a lack of transparency about party affairs to the public.
According to the findings, the political party that engaged in the most activity on social media platform X was PDI Perjuangan (@PDI_Perjuangan), with 30,593 tweets. Following this was Gerindra’s account (@Gerindra), reaching 17,057 tweets.
Meanwhile, the other three accounts did not show massive activity over the past year: Golkar’s account (@golkar_id) with a total of 5,982 tweets, PKB (@DPP_PKB) with 3,468 tweets, and Nasdem’s account (@NasDem) with 3,182 tweets.
“We found that the coalition’s tendency among these parties is electoral politics. Their main goal is to increase electability and popularity. We observed that PKB, in a coalition with Nasdem, had minimal interaction. Typically, it’s only about documenting meetings and visits,” said Irmawan.
“Meanwhile, the Gerindra and Golkar coalition exhibited high interaction. They frequently responded to each other on platform X.”
These two coalitions also made numerous efforts to boost the popularity of their presidential and vice-presidential candidates, namely Anies-Muhaimin and Prabowo-Gibran, each with different narratives.
Not only do parties demonstrate their coalitions and political candidates, but they have also strategically constructed the narrative around societal issues.
Based on the data, it was discovered that all parties considered the issue of the new Indonesian Capital City, Nusantara, in Kalimantan as a strategic issue.
Approximately 62 PDI-P tweets, 23 Golkar tweets, 22 Gerindra tweets, 15 PKB tweets, and 11 Nasdem tweets discussed Nusantara’s development. Most of these tweets emphasized party figures supporting the new capital city development.
This trend was apparent in the PDI-P, PKB, Gerindra, and Nasdem parties. Meanwhile, Golkar tended to highlight an institutional perspective.
Unfortunately, among the prioritized issues by political parties, the issue of climate change has been scarcely discussed. Yet, this issue is a government priority projected to continue until 2060.
Parties and presidential candidates have remained primarily focused on economic issues. The Nusantara issue has also been frequently linked to employment rather than the environment.
This highlights the need to promote the issue of climate change as a priority, considering the numerous other problems that could pose a threat if Indonesia doesn’t prepare adequate strategies to address climate change.
“Until now, we haven’t seen platform X as a priority for political parties. The narratives built have remained very formal, concerning party activities, coalitions, and characterization–all use formal language,” added the lecturer.
“Among the parties, only Gerindra’s account showed significant interactions because it uses the casual language that appeals to young people.”
Author: Tasya