Megawati: Health hoax and succession uncertainty

The head of steering committee of the Agency for the Implementation of the State Ideology of Pancasila (BPIP), Megawati Soekarnoputri, speaks during a presidential lecture event at the State Palace in Jakarta on Dec 3, 2019.- Antara

JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): The nearly absolute control Megawati Soekarnoputri wields over the country’s largest political party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), and that it is the only party eligible to nominate its own candidates in the 2024 presidential election, are perhaps among the reasons why fake news about her health attracted nationwide attention last week.

It was saddening to see, however, that some people responded with “jubilation” to the fake news, when it was already hard to believe that a hoax of this type had been spread here.