Police say they will not give permission for anti-Ahok rally on Feb 11, warn against poll monitoring on election day

The National Movement to Safeguard the Indonesian Ulema Council’s Fatwa (GNPF-MUI) is the organization, primarily composed of Islamic hardliner groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and Muslim People’s Forum (FUI), that organized the “mass actions” against Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in November and December which saw hundreds of thousands of protesters take to the capital’s streets calling for Ahok to be jailed for blasphemy. With the Jakarta governor’s election coming up on February 15, the group is looking to assert its influence in a big way by holding three more mass actions.

Police said they have received information that GNPF-MUI were planning actions on Feb 11, 12 and, worryingly, on election day itself.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) had previously declared that Feb 12-14 would be a cooling off period before the election in which no campaigning or mass political actions would be allowed to take place.

Police said they had only received an official letter of notice about the mass action on Saturday from FUI but have now declared that the action would be in violation of the cooling off period.

“We received the letter of intent about the [Feb 11] action on Feb 2. We have not given them an official letter of acceptance. Therefore we do not give permission.” Jakarta Police Spokesperson Raden Prabowo Argo Yuwono said today as quoted by Liputan 6.

Even though the action would be taking place before the day before the official start of the KPU mandated cooling off period. Argo said that it was part of an overall action plan which also included a Qur’anic recital on Sunday and a mass prayer on the day of the election prior to voting, with participants urged to monitor voting stations for fraudulent activity (perhaps prompted by the ridiculous suspicions of foreigners voting in the election spread by PKS boss Hidayat Nur Wahid).

Police said they could not and would not stop any purely religious actions, even on election day. But they said they would strictly oppose, and use force if necessary, to break up actions with political intent. They also said poll monitoring would not be allowed and was unnecessary as law enforcers were already on hand to secure and prevent fraud at polling stations.