Prabowo (right), along with his running mate, Gibran Rakabuming Raka - eldest son of Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and mayor of Surakarta - gesturing as they arrive to register for next year's presidential election at the election commission headquarters in Jakarta. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
JAKARTA: Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto has outspent all other candidates on social media advertising, spending a total of 8.67 billion rupiahs (RM2.6mil) so far on his campaign.
According to data from Meta Platform's Ad Library, Prabowo, who is also the country's defense minister, spent the social media advertising budget between Aug 2020 and Oct 2023.
Of this amount, Prabowo's supporter group Indonesia Adil Makmur spent 6.2 billion rupiahs (RM1.86mil), more than 70% of his total spending. The group spent around 500 million rupiahs (RM150,000) per month on Facebook and Instagram advertising alone.
Bakti Untuk Rakyat, another advertising account linked to the presidential candidate, spent 366 million rupiahs (RM109,000) on social media ads in Aug and Sept 2023. This figure increased to 514 million rupiahs (RM154,000) in Oct 2023, suggesting that the declaration and registration of presidential and vice presidential candidates boosted ad spending.
Combined with other advertiser accounts, Prabowo's social media advertising spending averages 1 billion rupiahs (RM300,000) per month.
Presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo spent 3.62 billion rupiahs (RM1.1mil) on social media advertising from Aug 2020 to Oct 24, 2023. The campaign team of the former Central Java governor displayed the ads through several accounts, including Melihat Indonesia, Ganjar Nusantara Indonesia and Ganjar-Fans.
Presidential hopeful Anies Baswedan, spent 930.54 million rupiahs (RM280,000) on social media advertising. The former Jakarta governor also used multiple accounts to advertise, such as Unboxing Anies, Fakta Anies Baswedan, Aksi Tanggap Anies and Suara Anies.
These expenditures are proportional to each candidate's wealth, with Prabowo reporting the most wealth compared with the other two presidential candidates.
According to the 2022 State Official Wealth Report (LHKPN) by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Prabowo has assets worth 2 trillion rupiahs (RM600mil), making the chairman of the Gerindra Party the wealthiest among the three candidates.
Ganjar, who is supported by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the country's largest political party, has assets of 15.4 billion rupiahs (RM4.6mil), while Anies has assets of 11.2 billion rupiahs (RM3.4mil).
The findings are consistent with a previous data mining study from the Independent Election Awareness Committee (KISP) and Muda Bicara ID conducted through Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram from Aug 4, 2020, to Jul 16, 2023.
The study revealed that Prabowo spent the most on social media ads, at 4 billion rupiahs (RM1.2mil), followed by Ganjar with 2 billion rupiahs (RM600,000) and Anies (RM48,000). — The Jakarta Post/ANN
