Clip of Indonesian presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto doctored to add cheers for opponent
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on December 19, 2023 at 05:04
- Updated on February 7, 2024 at 12:58
- 3 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"Fact / Prabowo is humiliated by Solo residents / Smart people vote for Anies Baswedan," reads Indonesian-language sticker text on a TikTok video, uploaded on November 30, 2023.
"Residents of Solo shouting 'Anies president' when Prabowo and Jokowi visited," an Indonesian-language voiceover can be heard saying.
Solo is a city in Central Java province and the hometown of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi (archived link).
The 26-second video, which has been viewed more than 1,000 times, shows Jokowi and Minister of Defence Prabowo Subianto -- who is contesting in Indonesia's upcoming presidential election in February 2024 -- greeting residents, who appear to be shouting "Anies president!"
In the election, Prabowo is running with Jokowi's eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is curently the mayor of Solo.
The defence minister is facing off against former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo.
The post circulated shortly after the official campaign period began on November 28, 2023 (archived link).
The same video has racked up more than 649,000 views after it was shared alongside a similar claim elsewhere on TikTok here, here, and here, as well as on Facebook.
In fact, AFP found the clip has been altered to add unrelated audio -- the original video does not show the crowd shouting Anies' name.
A keyword search on YouTube found the clip corresponds to a similar video uploaded by local media outlet Merdeka.com on July 26, 2023 (archived link).
The video's description says Jokowi and Prabowo visited Bululawang Market in Malang regency, East Java province, on July 24, 2023.
The clip shared in the false posts corresponds to the MerdekaDotCom video's 51-second mark. While the video contains background music, some chants of "Prabowo" can be heard.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the Merdeka.com video (right):
Similar scenes from Jokowi and Prabowo's visit can be seen in a video report by local media outlet Tribunnews on July 24, 2023 (archived link).
Some of the surrounding crowd can be heard calling out Prabowo's name, but none are chanting Anies' name.
Prabowo's campaign team told AFP that, as of December 13, 2023, the presidential hopeful had yet to visit Solo as part his campaign.
As of December 19, 2023, there are no reports of people chanting in support of Anies during a Prabowo campaign event.
AFP is unable to identify the exact source of the "Anies president" audio.
However, the chant is similar to those heard during other Anies events, such as here and here (archived links here and here).
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
