No, this is not an image of a top Indonesian cleric declaring support for the president’s re-election bid

  • This article is more than one year old.
  • Published on February 13, 2019 at 10:30
  • 2 min read
  • By AFP Indonesia

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Multiple Facebook posts that have been shared hundreds of times contain a photo of Muslim cleric Abdul Somad with his index finger raised which they claim shows he has declared support for Indonesian president Joko Widodo in his 2019 re-election bid. But the posts are misleading. The photo of Somad was taken three months before the presidential election ballot numbers were announced and does not have any link to the upcoming polls.

One of the posts that shared the image was this February 8 entry captioned: “Ustadz Abdul Somad has returned to the right path. Do follow him if you want the country to be safe. Vote for Jokowi who has the cleric’s support. The number 02 must have been panicked by this news.”

Screenshot of the misleading post.

Jokowi is Widodo’s popular nickname. Widodo’s ballot number is 01 and raising one finger is seen as a mark of support for his campaign.

His sole rival in presidential elections in April is retired general Prabowo Subianto, whose ballot number is 02.

Somad, a Muslim cleric who has 7.5 million followers on Instagram, is the man in the center of the photograph.

A Google Reverse Image search showed that the photograph was taken and posted online some three months before Indonesia’s General Elections Commission (KPU) announced the ballot numbers for the presidential election.

KPU announced the ballot numbers on September 21, 2018, after a draw held the same day, according to this Jakarta Post report. KPU’s own announcement can be seen on this post on its official website.

The photo of three men was posted online on June 24, 2018 by Twitter user @Umar_Hasibuan, who says the photograph shows him, Somad and Musa Rajekshah, who was then a candidate running to be the deputy governor of North Sumatra province.

Hasibuan is the man wearing glasses on the left of the image and Musa Rajekshah is on the right of the photo.

Musa Rajekshah’s ballot number was 01 in the local race, according to reports in local media, for example here.

The tweet, dated June 24, 2018, translates as: “This is me with Ustad Abdul Somad Batubara and @musarajekshah, the North Sumatra deputy governor candidate. Hopefully the police, the intelligence agency and Indonesian Army will stay neutral in the province’s election on June 27.”

After the misleading Facebook posts began to appear February 8, 2019, Hasibuan, who has more than 50,000 followers on Twitter, tweeted a clarification about the photograph.

“I need to clarify about this photo. This photo was taken when Ustad Somad and North Sumatra deputy governor visited my Islamic boarding school. At that time, the deputy governor was campaigning in the North Sumatra Election as candidate with ballot number 1, that’s why we posed for a photo by raising one finger. This photo does not have any link at all with supporting Jokowi. Please don’t slander Ustad Somad and the North Sumatra deputy governor.”

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