Numbers don鈥檛 lie, but it seems like somebody has been lying about the number of attendees at 212 events for the third year running.
Depending on who you believe, yesterday鈥檚 212 Grand Reunion, which marked the two-year anniversary of the mass protest that led to the fall of former Jakarta Governor Basuki 鈥淎hok鈥 Tjahaja Purnama, was attended by anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of people.
We may never know for sure, but, consistent with previous events, the organizers of the 212 Grand Reunion gave the higher end estimate of that number. According to them, a group equivalent to the entire population of Jakarta flooded the National Monument (Monas) and its surrounding areas yesterday.
鈥淏ack then [in previous 212 events] there were up to 7 million people. But now, according to information from the media who used their drones, there could be 8 to 10 million people in attendance,鈥 212 Grand Reunion head organizer Bernard Abdul Jabbar told reporters yesterday,
Bernard did not specify exactly which media outlet gave the 10 million estimation.
Contradicting Bernard鈥檚 claim, the Jakarta Metro Police gave a much lower estimate: 100,000. Meanwhile, the National Police gave an even lower estimate.
鈥淎round 40,000 people,鈥
鈥淭hey (the organizers) targeted [for millions] but in reality, on the field, they didn鈥檛 even reach one-tenth of that.鈥
After the original 212 protest on December 2, 2016, the organizers claimed that 7 million people were in attendance while media reports put the number at around 500,000. For last year鈥檚 first 212 anniversary event, the organizers claimed the event was attended by 7.5 million people, but the police said
At any rate, yesterday鈥檚 212 Grand Reunion went smoothly by all accounts, , allegedly due to exhaustion, and numerous reports of (Islamic mass organizations like .
