Local and National Elections in Remote Indonesia: The Case of Sumba

Abstract

Democratization has brought some significant changes to Indonesia, but in peripheral regions such as the island of Sumba, there remains much continuity. Although the party system has opened up after the fall of Suharto’s New Order in 1999, the ways in which royal status and patronage act to influence elections in Sumba remain, especially at the local and provincial levels. The national political conversation, however, does influence politics in Sumba. In the 2019 presidential election, the perceived threat of political Islam from candidate Prabowo Subianto pushed the predominantly Protestant population of Sumba and its province East Nusa Tenggara to choose his opponent, Joko Widodo, for a second term, similar to other predominantly non-Muslim provinces.