The Ahok campaign chilled Indonesia’s president from confronting military power

Evidence

It also became clear, later in 2017, that conservative forces in Indonesia were willing to use the red-baiting strategy against the president himself by intimating that Jokowi was somehow a communist when it served his purposes. He was evidently chilled by the successful campaign against Ahok. It was clear that he would not initiate any kind of “truth and reconciliation” committee, or investigation into the 1965–1966 mass killings, as many human rights groups had hoped when he first won the election. It soon became clear that he would not really stand up to military power, or to conservative religious forces. His former running mate languished behind bars. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 699

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the Brazil pattern where a successful reactionary campaign chilled reformers (ch19, ch23); connects to Dilma’s dilemma in ch18.