TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Politica Wave executive director Yose Rizal said netizens have shown solid support for Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama to serve as the Jakarta governor until 2017. According to Yose, netizens would not be influenced by protests launched by the Islam Defender Front (FPI).

“Netizens have made Ahok as the trending topic,” Yose said in a press release on Saturday, November 15, 2014.

Politca Wave had been monitoring the social media on Friday, November 14, 2014. The result showed that 97 percent of 53,280 tweets were positive responses to Ahok’s inauguration as the governor.

Yose explained that 85 percent of the tweets mentioned Ahok’s character as the main reason for supporting him as the governor, and eight percent of the tweets revealed disagreement over the protest launched by the FPI. Six percent of the tweets mentioned that a leader did not have to be a Muslim and the other one percent wanted Jakarta to be a developed city.

On the other hand, Yose Rizal said 72 percent of the negative responses expressed disagreement over Ahok’s inauguration without mentioning the reason. About 11 percent of netizens used Ahok’s ethnicity and religious believes as the reason for their disagreement and 10 percent of netizens said Jakarta Legislative Council’s plenary session deciding the inauguration was not valid.

“The rest of them said Ahok’s performance was underachieving,” Yose added.

LINDA HAIRANI