Who Is Ahok

What can an Indonesian who recently graduated from high school do when failing to receive graduation certificate because he or she comes from a poor family? One answer to this question: write a letter to former Jakarta governor Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama, a blasphemy prisoner who is currently held behind the bar in Depok, West Java.

This is what exactly was done by a high school (SMA) graduate in Lamongan, East Java. The girl, identified only as FM, recently wrote a letter to Ahok for help and the former governor immediately answered her letter, saying his personal staff would transfer the money she needed as soon as possible.

This story is quite unusual given that Lamongan is located quite far away in East Java and FM should have turned to East Java officials for help. The Lamongan girl had witnessed media reports about former Governor Ahok’s habit of redeeming school certificates of Jakarta students who had failed to pay their school fee arrears.

“The girl wrote a letter to Mako Brimob (in Depok). Pak Ahok answered her letter and asked her to contact me,” said Ahok’s staff Natanael Ompusunggu.

The popular Ahok has been held at the police’s Mako Brimob detention center in Depok since 9 May 2017 immediately after North Jakarta court judges sentenced him to two years in jail for blaspheming Islam and the Quran. The Christian and ethnic Chinese Ahok was widely recognized as a clean and efficient administrator.

On the Lamongan student case, Natanael cancelled the transfer of Ahok’s money to FM after the girl called him last week and said that she had just received her SMA certificate. This happened reportedly because her school leaders had learnt about FM’s letter to Ahok.

The sharp-tongued Ahok served as Jakarta vice governor from 2012 to 2014 and took over the governor post from Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo after the latter was elected president of Indonesia. His failure to retain his post in last April’s election, along with then Vice Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat, was due to hard-line groups pushing for his case to be brought to court trial. Anies Baswsedan and his running mate Sandiaga Uno won heavily in the 2017 Jakarta election.

Meanwhile, when anti-Ahok demonstrations were ongoing in the capital, some people in several provinces were said to suggest that Ahok become their governor if Jakarta’s voters refused his reelection.