By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
JAKARTA (Worthy News) – Representatives of Indonesia’s minority Christians tell Worthy News they are concerned about their future if a radical Muslim candidate wins Wednesday’s presidential vote.
More than 200 million eligible voters head to the polls in Indonesia in what is seen as the world’s most significant single-day election in the biggest Muslim nation.
Prabowo Subianto, 72, a former military general and incumbent defense minister, is leading the polls despite his controversial past.
He is the former son-in-law of the late dictator Suharto, but that hasn’t diminished his popularity, as dynastic politics is returning.
Subianto is accused of kidnapping and torturing pro-democracy activists in the late 1990s when he served as general – which he repeatedly denied responsibility for.
In the years since, he has tried to appear publicly as a democracy supporter, though Christians tell Worthy News that they realize his authoritarian past. “However, Christians have still been encouraged to vote for him as the alternative is two more radical Muslims,” said Victoria, a dedicated church worker and entrepreneur.
She fears a radical Muslim could further worsen the difficulties devoted Christians already face in Indonesia.
INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE
Victoria refers to ex-Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan, who is running as an independent candidate. However, he has strong links with Islamic political groups, and his vice-presidential pick, Muhaimin Iskandar, is the leader of Indonesia’s largest Muslim political party, the National Awakening Party.
Anies was the former governor of Jakarta, a position he won in 2017 after accusing his leading contender – an ethnic Chinese Christian, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known as “Ahok” – of blasphemy.
Another prominent contender is Ganjar Pranowo, the candidate of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.
He served two terms as governor of Central Java, which has won him a large following outside the capital, Jakarta, on Indonesia’s most populous island. His running mate is senior minister Mahfud MD.
“None of these two other candidates would help Christians,” said Victoria, which is the name she uses when talking publicly about her church activities.
She was banned from a Muslim-run association of entrepreneurs due to her Christian faith and activities, which include organizing home churches and prayer groups. “We have been praying for these elections and our nation.”
Her concerns about Wednesday’s vote, “held on Valentine’s Day,” are shared by Ahmad Quraisy, who isn’t his family name, who was a commander of the feared Islamic State of Indonesia (NII), an Indonesian militant group.
PREVENTING PRESSURE
He hopes Prabowo Subianto will prevent more pressure on Christians to put a lid on Islamic extremism.
Since becoming a Christian after nearly blowing up a church, Quraisy leads an underground movement in Indonesia converting Muslims to Christianity or, in his words, leading them to “personal faith in Christ.”
He told Worthy News that his movement has grown to some 7,000 members despite the dangers and pressure on Christian converts.
The pastor says he hopes that under a new president, Christians will enjoy more protection after several violent, sometimes deadly attacks against churches and individual believers in recent years.
He has expressed concerns that Muslims in South Sulawesi province have been blocking a Christian school from being built in their neighborhood despite authorities having granted it a permit.
Rights advocates are also calling for Indonesia’s blasphemy laws to be amended or revoked, as the number of Islamic fatwas and arrests for blasphemy against Islam have increased at an alarming rate.
The Setara Institute rights group has reported that Indonesia saw the number of criminal blasphemy cases rise from 10 in 2021 to 19 in 2022.
MANY CONVICTIONS
Human Rights Watch recorded 150 blasphemy convictions since Indonesia’s blasphemy law was enacted in 1965, with most of them occurring during the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2004 to 2014.
One of the “victims of these laws is an elderly Christian man in West Java province,” who is serving a second prison term for blasphemy as he allegedly insulted Islam’s prophet Muhammad in social media posts that were critical of Islam, Christians said.
Apollinaris Darmawan, in his 70s, is serving a sentence imposed by the Bandung District Court in 2020. He was charged with blasphemy offenses, which carry a maximum sentence of five years in jail.
A long-term critic of Islamic teachings, Darmawan was found guilty of “disseminating information aimed at causing hatred or dissension on individuals and certain groups of community-based on ethnic groups, religions, races, and inter-groups.”
Darmawan was first sentenced to four years imprisonment in 2017 when he was charged with insulting Islam, said rights investigators.
He was freed briefly in March 2020 as part of an effort to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 but was soon back in jail.
Despite his time in prison, “Darmawan still fervently believes his challenge of Islamic teaching is the truth according to his faith in Jesus Christ,” said the International Christian Concern (ICC) group.
Advocacy group Open Doors has suggested that new policies are urgently needed to help him and many of the other estimated 34.6 million Christians in Indonesia, comprising around 12 percent of the country’s population.
CHRISTIANS CONCERNED
“The situation for Christians has been deteriorating in the course of recent years, with Indonesian society increasingly influenced by conservative interpretations of Islam. Polls regularly show that young people, especially, hold conservative views, and by-laws on Islamic dress are becoming more common,” Open Doors said in a recent assessment.
The primary hotbed of persecution in Indonesia is the Aceh Province, the only province that is governed by Sharia (Islamic law), Christians told Worthy News.
“Building new churches is difficult there, and converts from Islam face the most pressure of any other place in the country. A recent decision by the legislature has also stoked fears that Sharia could eventually be adopted in the province of West Sumatra,” Open Doors explained.
Christians now hope that his situation and that of other believers will improve under a new president replacing Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, who has dominated Indonesian politics since 2014.
He is constitutionally barred from seeking a consecutive third term.
Jokowi was hailed at the time as a break from Indonesia’s dynastic politics, but concerns have been growing over what critics say are his attempts to keep influence after leaving office through his 36-year-old son Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
His son has been running for vice president with Prabowo. “I think he hasn’t enough experience. Yet we as Christians still feel that Prabowo may help turn this nation around,” Victoria said.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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