How to Beat an Incumbent

Some politicians and observers believe that SBY would win the July presidential race easily. They believe that even in a three-way competition, SBY could seal the election in one round. But others believe the chance to beat SBY is wide open, even though facing an entrenched incumbent is a daunting prospect. There is nothing impossible in politics. So, beating an incumbent is possible with hard work and preparation. How?

An incumbent president has lots of advantages. He could be out there in public every time he wants. He or she has the luxury of being covered in media by the so-called Palace Reporters. He or she could go out there to every corner of the country as president. That's why being a challenger to incumbent president may seem impossible, especially if you're in position like Vice President Kalla.

Would be difficult to imagine how he would define his opponents, especially his current partner SBY. Would be easier to define other opponents like Megawati, for example. Would be difficult also to imagine how Kalla draw a contrast. He did during the legislative election with the tag-line "faster, better" to "indirectly" contrast Golkar & Kalla with Demokrat and SBY.

One of the most common advise to beat an incumbent is to start early. SBY, according to some observers, started early his plan to challenge the incumbent president Megawati in 2004. He won. This time, Megawati actually started early her challenge. Prabowo started somewhat late. He announced his intention last year. The latest is Kalla, only few weeks ago.

But start early gives no guarantee at all. Sutjipto from PDI-P started earlier his East Java governorship race, but in the first round to Soekarwo (Demokrat) and Khofifah Indar Parawangsa (PPP) who entered the race only few months ahead of the election. Soekarwo and his running mate Saefullah Yusuf won the race with huge "cost", gigantic financing support from some conglomerates in Jakarta.

Define your opponent, draw a contrast, and define the agenda are three other important steps needed to beat an incumbent. 

Prabowo, Megawati, and Kalla actually managed to define SBY. Prabowo and Kalla had also tried to draw contrast. Prabowo has the flexibility to draw contrast from SBY, and somehow he succeeded. Now young people increasingly believe that Prabowo could be a better leader than SBY. Megawati and Kalla found difficulties in drawing the contrast.

Define the agenda?

Frankly, none of the president candidates, including SBY, has defined their agenda clearly. All of them talk about abstracts agenda and difficult to measure targets. That's probably why the non-voters group easily beat the incumbent, because most of them actually don't care. They did that in the legislative election. The non-voters group dominated the "exit polls" with 40% of total eligible votes, triple the size of Demokrat which got about 20% votes. Other than the voters list problem, the non-voters group have very low trust on political parties and legislators.

This article is an archive of yosefardi.com.

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