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Exclusive | Indonesia election ‘not about religion’, says Sandiaga Uno. It’s about unity – and the economy
- Indonesia’s presidential challenger Prabowo Subianto has been accused of playing to conservative Muslims in his effort to unseat President Joko Widodo
- No, his running mate tells This Week in Asia: they stand for unity – and the economy
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Indonesian vice-presidential candidate Sandiaga Uno believes he and his running mate Prabowo Subianto are the right team to unite a multicultural country divided by religious identity politics.
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Asked if the Muslim conservatives and hardliners mobilising support for him and Prabowo, 67, were a divisive force, the tycoon and investor, 49, said the pair were uniting Indonesians “from all walks of life” and religions by promising to focus on what voters wanted – a better economy.
“We are talking to all constituents and we believe the Prabowo-Sandi team are in the best position to unite the country,” Sandiaga said, while on a break from the campaign trail in Lampung province on Sumatra island, five days ahead of the general elections in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
Prabowo lost the province to President Joko Widodo in the 2014 election, but took 47 per cent of the vote.
“We believe conservatives listen to us … Prabowo’s brother is a Christian, and his sister is Catholic. So you can see that Prabowo lives and breathes tolerance, lives and breathes pluralism … so we would like to unite the country.”
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