How AI Makes And Breaks Indonesia's Presidential Election, And Also 'Resurrect' A Long Dead Dictator

AI, the hype of technology, has been making rounds after rounds, as more people realize its potential.

And thanks to the various AI products that have become widely available, even more people start utilize the technology to aid their works and make projects done.

Indonesia, the vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, just had its general election, conducted to elect the President, Vice President, and members of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), which consists of the House of Representatives (DPR), the Regional Representative Council (DPD), and members of local legislative bodies at the provincial and city/regency level.

Before it even started, AI was already used extensively.

And later, it's realized that it both makes and breaks the election.

Or at least, people's trust.

The candidates for the presidential election included Prabowo Subianto from the Advanced Indonesia Coalition, Anies Baswedan from the Coalition of Change for Unity, and Ganjar Pranowo from the PDI-P-led alliance. Prabowo Subianto’s running mate was Gibran Rakabuming, while Anies Baswedan’s running mate was Muhaimin Iskandar, and Ganjar Pranowo’s running mate was Mahfud MD.

During the campaign, Prabowo was noted for his team's efforts at rehabilitating his image.

His campaign literally aimed at changing how people knew him, a former general associated with human rights violations during the dictatorship of former President Soeharto, to a "cuddly" (gemoy) grandfather figure among the youth.

And to do this, his team went as far as making an animated, Pixar-like avatar of him on TikTok.

His campaign team utilized this in order to appeal Indonesians aged 40 and younger, since they make up the majority of the vote with 114 million voters.

Anies Baswedan's and Ganjar Pranowo's campaign also used interactive AI chatbots to engage with voters.

The party of former Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo enlisted an interactive AI chatbot to engage with potential voters. AI photos made by supporters, have also been used by Ganjar’s party in his campaign.

Former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, also utilized a campaign that makes use of OpenAI's ChatGPT to answer questions about his policies on WhatsApp.

Both candidates were using the interactive AI chatbot to engage with voters.

But AI, which has risen in popularity following the likes of deepfake and ChatGPT, is also extensively used for nefarious purposes.

And during elections, they can be used extensively to quickly and effortlessly create and spread disinformation and malinformation.

For example, Anies Baswedan was targeted by a deepfake audio recording purportedly showing him being chastised by a political backer in January.

Anies cautioned against the use of AI in the election after he became the victim.

"We have to be critical because now there is AI technology which can generate audio or visuals that can appear real," Anies said.

Prabowo's campaign team also used AI to depict children in a television commercial in order to bypass laws prohibiting the appearance of minors in electoral advertisements.

"The technology used is so advanced […] We can understand if some people mistook (the children) as real characters,” Budisatrio Djiwandono said, adding the the advertisement was called out by watchdog groups.

And lastly, someone managed to create a once-feared army general, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than three decades.

"I am Soeharto, the second president of Indonesia," the former general said in a three-minute video that has racked up more millions of views on X, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.

The general, 'resurrected' from his grace using deepfake technology, has a message for voters.

The video was released ahead of the elections.

“The video was made to remind us how important our votes are in the upcoming election," said Erwin Aksa, deputy chairman of Golkar.

Golkar, which is one of Indonesia’s largest and oldest political parties, was Soeharto's party during his presidency.

Golkar revived Soeharto hack to life just weeks before the vote, and that its intentions were to encourage voters to remember Soeharto for what he did.

“As a member of Golkar, I am very proud of Suharto because he successfully developed Indonesia,” Erwin Aksa wrote on X. “He brought a lot of success. We must respect it and remember his services – Golkar was there.”

But online critics decried the act of using a dead man’s face and voice, especially for political propaganda.

And not to mention, Soeharto is considered by international rights organizations to be one of the most corrupt and brutal periods in Indonesia’s history. During his presidency, thousands were jailed or killed, as he cracked down on critics and political opponents.

Among others, this happened when he enforced his regime’s rule over East Timor, Aceh, West Papua and the Maluku islands.

Under his "New Order" administration, Soeharto constructed a strong, centralized and military-dominated government, and turned them into a personalistic authoritarian regime centered around himself.

Under his rule, according to Transparency International, Soeharto was one of the most corrupt leaders in modern history, having embezzled an alleged $15–35 billion during his presidency

However, with his ability to maintain stability over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia and an avowedly anti-communist stance, he won economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War.

For most of his presidency, Indonesia experienced significant industrialization, economic growth, and improved levels of educational attainment.

As a result, he was given the title "Father of Development".

Soeharto, once dubbed the “Smiling General” because he was always seen smiling despite his ruthless leadership style, died in 2008 at age 86, following a coupe that crumpled his power.

Discussion of his rule remains largely taboo in Indonesia and opinions about his legacy are mixed.

The Golkar-produced Soeharto video was just one of dozens featured in official party campaigns, they said.

Then, soon after the election on the scheduled February 14th, 2024, the government, which utilizes the SIREKAP 2024 app.

With the app, the government hopes to show transparency in the election, which had over 200 million eligible voters, voting in over 800,000 polling stations across the country on the same date.

But the app had a lot of issues, and this angered many users and citizens, that they are giving it bad reviews.

"SIREKAP 2024 is an application for documenting the vote counting results form at the TPS and sending it to the next level," the app says on Google Play Store listing.

Among the reasons, the app showed inconsistencies between manual counting and digital counting.

The app itself isn't that complex, it's said that the issue stemmed from the AI the app uses, which is used to read written text and covert it digitally.

This made the public to suggest that the polls were rigged to favor certain candidates.

And since Prabowo was winning a by a long margin, and that many of the polls were also biased toward him, a lot speculated that Prabowo's team was amongst those behind the inconsistencies

"Deepfakes can greatly influence an election – the way campaigning is done, as well as the results,” said Golda Benjamin, Asia Pacific campaign manager at Access Now, a U.S. digital rights non-profit.

"The danger lies in how fast it spreads. A deepfake can easily reach millions in seconds, swaying and manipulating (millions of) voters."

And in Indonesia, it's apparent that AI is playing various roles, aimed for entertainment and fun, to misleading.

With many major parties had turned to AI and used a variety of different deepfakes and AI for political gain,

This led some civil society organizations to urge the KPU to implement regulations on the usage of AI.

Indonesia’s Communications Ministry issued advisories following several viral AI videos, warning tech companies and voters to be cautious of deepfakes.

But efforts have not been enough, watchdog groups said.

It's worth noting that Prabowo, a former army general, served under Soeharto's military-backed regime.

He was also his former son-in-law, when he was married to Titiek Soeharto, the second daughter of Soeharto.

As for his running mate, Gibran Rakabuming, is the son of incumbent President, Joko Widodo

Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, was ineligible to run for a third term due to limitations established by the Indonesian constitution.