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Examining factors affecting the failure of Khofifah Indar Parawansa in East Java gubernatorial elections

Statistics consistently show that women in executive political leadership positions are much lower than men at a global level. Institutional, socio-economic, and socio-cultural factors influence this condition. Some studies also identified that media considered as an essential factor for women’s involvement in politics. This paper examines factors contributing to the failure of Khofifah Indar Parawansa in East Java gubernatorial elections and whether or not gender is a matter in affecting the failure. This research analyzed kompas.com on how media reports the process of exploring this issue, how it frames the factors and the result of the 2008 and 2013. Seventy-nine news reports from online newspapers, 27 from the 2008 election and 52 from the 2013 election, were analyzed. Researchers traced these articles using thematic textual analysis to identify factors inhibiting Khofifah’s participation in the elections. The media reported that political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural aspects inhibited her success in the elections. Interestingly, the media emphasizes the political aspect as the most significant factor in her failures. It implies that the media provides balanced and fair information on female candidates.


Introduction
This article discusses Khofifah Indar Parawansa (hereafter called Khofifah) in the East Java gubernatorial elections in 2008 and 2013. The paper focuses on barriers that she faced as a female candidate reported in Kompas.com, trustworthy online news in Indonesia owned by Kompas Cyber Media Company established in 1997. In Indonesia, the media plays an essential role in politics. Mukrimin (2013) argues that Indonesia's media actively influenced and contributed to political outcomes. It is interesting to know the role of media in reporting the process and the election results, particularly portraying Khofifah as a female candidate.

Kingsbury in
Khofifah is a well-known Muslim female activist, and she was the Minister for Women 's Empowerment from 1999's Empowerment from -2001 in Abdurrahman Wahid's presidency. In 2018, she was elected as the head of Muslimat, the women's wing of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) (the most prominent Muslim women's organization in Indonesia), and it is her third period in the position. With her background and abilities, she would have sufficient support to win the elected office. Polling by five independent research institutes predicted her victory in the 2008 election, and however, when the results were counted entirely, she was not successful (Kompas.com 2008h). She ran again for election in 2013 with a different person as the candidate for vice-governor after overcoming issues with the electoral commission; she was unsuccessful again, although a poll by Indonesian Survey Circle or Lingkaran Survei Indonesia (LSI) predicted that she was the strongest candidate to replace the incumbent (Kompas.com 2013d).
This research aimed to identify the factors that contributed to her failure and whether or not gender influenced the failure of her participation in both elections. This research becomes critical because Khofifah became the winner in the 2018 election, which she contested. She is now the governor of East Java Province. By examining the factors that contributed to her failure in the 2008 and the 2013 elections, further research can be conducted to determine what factors contributed to her success in the 2018 election. Those findings will be useful as lessons learned for any female candidates who want to contest in gubernatorial or head of district elections in Indonesia and elsewhere. The research does not examine the political analysis of Khofifah's involvement in the election, however how media raises the news or issues on barriers that Khofifah faced when she participated in the two elections.
The researcher chooses Kompas.com as the source of data because Kompas is the most popular newspaper in Indonesia (Prasetyo 2016). It contains a special report on East Java; therefore, East Java's people will understand any news or events that are going on in the province, as provided by this mass media. Kompas newspaper is known to be a neutral newspaper in reporting any candidates in the elections; however, through his research on Kompas's position in the 2014 Indonesian presidential election, Wijayanto (2018) found that Kompas newspaper's neutrality can be categorized as "ambiguous neutrality." As a business institution, Kompas does not want to make any conflicts with candidates for president; whoever wins the election will have good relation with Kompas. Furthermore, Kompas wants to please each presidential candidate's supporters by making balanced reports on each of them. Doing this will benefit Kompas because supporters of both candidates will be happy to purchase this newspaper, albeit, in reality, reporters of Kompas were basically in favor of Jokowi, the elected president, instead of Prabowo, the challenger.
It is essential to identify the factors contributing to women's involvement in politics in different contexts, referring back to this study's purpose. The number of women sitting in the Indonesian national parliament is 97 (17.3%) of 560 total members (Aritonang 2014). In East Java Provincial Parliament, there are 15 women (15%) of 100 total members (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Jawa TimurJawa Timur 2014). Several women have become the head or vice-head of districts of East Java Province. There are 38 districts in East Java Province (29 districts and nine cities). Three of the 29 districts were headed by females, and two of the nine cities. In total, there is five female head of districts in East Java Province (14%). Three females have become vice heads of districts (8%).
Previous research identifies three factors: institutional, socio-economic, and socio-cultural, which hinder women from entering parliament or attaining political leadership. Understanding the three factors will help female politicians plan strategies to break down the barriers they face and address women's low representation in political offices. Shvedova (2005) explained that political obstacles include a dominant masculine model in political life and institutions, lack of access to political training and leadership, and an electoral system that is not favorable to women. Socio-economic obstacles include a lack of financial resources, poverty, and low education. Socio-cultural barriers include gender ideology and social roles, lack of confidence, women's perceptions of politics, and the media's subjectivity in portraying women; however, Shvedova (2005) did not indicate if one factor is more dominant.
Other important factors that women should overcome include proposing themselves as candidates, asking parties to choose them as candidates, and convincing voters to vote (Matland 2005). Matland (2005) explains that convincing parties to select women as candidates and to change electoral systems are more important than other factors. The stage at which the party gatekeepers choose the candidates is crucial for getting women into the office (Matland 2005). In addition to institutional attitudes, characteristics of voters and electorates were significant (Leigh 2006). A study of factors affecting female representation in state legislatures in the United States found that region, education, population size, and Protestantism most strongly correlated with female representation. Lovenduski (2005) observed that the underrepresentation of women in representative institutions caused by a combination of institutional and social factors. Hassim (2009) also considers that institutional obstacles are the most significant, stating barriers and biases in institutions (the electoral and party system especially) and resistant political cultures appear to override the gains made in socio-economic status; however, this certainly does not mean that socio-economic factors can be ignored. They still play a significant part in women's access to the political arena.
The election regulations can also become an essential factor for a candidate's success or failure, like in other provinces in Indonesia, the governor of East Java's election based on the central government's regulations. In the New Order Era under President Suharto, the governor of any province was elected by members of the provincial parliament or Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Provinsi. Consequently, people did not have a chance to elect their governor directly. With the new reform era, and following the president's direct election in 2004, the heads of provinces and districts are now directly elected by the people. Law Number 32, the year 2004 on Local Government, was enacted on 15 October 2004. This law is the basis for conducting direct elections.
Media plays an essential role in determining the configuration of women in politics. Media can inform people about women politicians' figures, and their information can influence people's perception toward them. As Street (2001) argues, it is widely assumed that media exercise influence. Studies show that the media portrays women as unsuitable for politics; hence, people do not favor voting women. Therefore, it is plausible when Fogiel-Bijaoui in Lachover (2012) says that media is the fourth barrier to prevent women in politics, along with psychological, socio-economic, and political factors. Various researches have found that the media has not given enough attention to women in politics. Whereas, as the researcher mentioned earlier, the media can help women be elected to a political office. Nevertheless, in general, the media is not keen to promote women. In the United Kingdom, the press places men as experts in politics but not women; women receive less attention than men (Adcock 2010, O'Neill et al. 2016). News about women politicians usually relates to their private lives rather than their professional lives. The same phenomenon happens in Nigeria; Ette (2017) found that Nigerian female politicians get very little attention from the media and inappropriate interviewing methods. In their interviews with female politicians, the media states that women do not have to be politicians because politics is a man's world.
It is hard to find research talking about how the media portrays female politicians and media reports' impact in Indonesia. Some studies talk about how women are figured in media, such as in the cinema. Aripurnami (1996) found that Indonesian women described as best kept at home, naturally irrational and emotional, on the presentation of women in sinetron (electronic cinema) in Indonesian television in the 1990s. Incapable of solving their problems, they must be told what to do by men. Nevertheless, after the fall of Suharto's authoritarian regime, Indonesian women's presentation was slightly changed. The study by Sulistyani (2011) on two Indonesian films, Pasir Berbisik (Whispering Sand) and Berbagi Suami (Sharing a Husband) showed Indonesian women still trapped in traditional roles that are shaped by patriarchy but are starting to be brave to express their intentions, make their own decisions. This fact reflects that the media has slightly changed how they perceive women's roles in Indonesian society.

Research Method
Several studies have been conducted on women in politics and media with varied approaches and methods of investigation, including the portrayal of female politicians in the media ( According to Dabbous & Ladley (2010), frame analysis investigates how an issue, a person, or an object, is packaged. The researcher would like to investigate how Kompas.com packaged the causes of Khofifah's failure to be elected. The design is essential to deepen information and understand how media works to influence viewers' perceptions of female politicians. In other words, the media can frame or construct reality (Dabbous & Ladley 2010). Therefore, qualitative analysis of the media helps a researcher understand whether the media contributes positively or negatively to increase women's representation in politics. The focus of the present study is different from previous studies. Instead of looking at how media portrays female politicians, how media designs framing for female politicians, or how media is used to promote or campaign for female candidates, this article analyzed media articles to barriers that a female candidate faces.
In this case, the researcher sees the media as a medium to inform people about the true story of what happens in elections; hence people will make rational decisions. As Tresch in Ette (2017) argues, the media is the critical intermediary between political actors and citizens, and Romano in Mukrimin (2013) argues that the function of media is as the agent of empowerment who attempts to enlighten and strengthen the public and as truth defender who aims to defend their journalism and truth of the news.
This research collected all articles related to the elections from Kompas.com. Kompas.com is one of the business units of Kompas Gramedia, the company that also publishes Kompas newspaper (Prasetyo 2016). Before searching the articles, the researcher knew that Kompas had published many articles on the issues. For example, when typed East Java gubernatorial election 2008, within 0.33 seconds found around 9.090 articles (Kompas.com 2019a). When changed the keyword into East Java Gubernatorial election 2013, within 0.22 seconds, the result was about 8.300 articles (Kompas. com 2019b). It would be impossible to look at all information, and not all articles would be relevant to the researcher's issue. Therefore, the researcher needed to specify the search and decide to type relevant keywords in the search box of Kompas.com; through this strategy, the researcher could get the intended articles.
For each election year (2008 and 2013), the researcher typed eight phrases in the search box. The phrases were: 1) news on the election of East Java's governor, 2) gender and the election of East Java's governor, 3) women and the election of East Java's governor, 4) Khofifah and the election of East Java's governor, 5) campaign in the election of East Java's governor, 6) political party and the election of East Java's governor, 7) culture and East Java's governor election, and 8) economy and East Java's governor election.
The researcher read all titles of articles and then carefully looked at the date of the article published. Although typed the 2008 election, the articles that appeared were from the 2013 election, and often, the same articles appeared, although different typed phrases in the search box. After carefully looking at the article's topic and the published date, the researcher selected the relevant article. More than 100 relevant articles were selected, and after further reading, only 79 selected for further analysis: 27 from the 2008 election and 52 from the 2013 election. The identified barriers were then divided into three categories, referring to Shvedova (2005) political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural.

Frame analysis of Kompas.com on political, socioeconomic, and socio-cultural factors
The 2008 East Java gubernatorial election was the first direct election held in this province. According to Part 1 Article 36 of Government Regulations Number 6 the year 2005, a contestant of the election is a pair of candidates proposed by a political party or coalition of political parties in pairs. According to Part 2 of the same article, those parties can propose a pair of candidates if they had at least 15% of the East Java Parliament seats or 15% of the total votes gained in an East Java parliamentary election. In the 2008 election, Khofifah and Mudjiono fulfilled the criteria as they were proposed by Persatuan Pembangunan Party (PPP) and supported by small parties (Persatuan Nahdlatul Ummah Indonesia Party (PPNUI), Nasional Indonesia Party (PNI-Marhaen), Merdeka Party, Pelopor Party, Indonesia Baru Party (PIB), Nasional Benteng Kerakyatan Indonesia Party (PNBK), Keadilan dan Persatuan Indonesia Party (PKPI), Bintang Reformasi Party (PBR), Damai Sejahtera Party (PDS), Karya Peduli Bangsa Party (PKPB), and Patriot Party) with 16.72% of the total votes in the East Java parliamentary election; however, neither pair of candidate won the election. Point Number 12 of Law Number 12, the year 2008, regulates that a pair of candidates is elected to be governor to collect 50% of the total valid votes. If neither of the candidates can reach 50% of the total valid votes, then those who can get 30% of the total valid votes will be elected; however, neither Khofifah-Mudjiono nor Soekarwo-Saifullah could secure 50% or 30% of the total valid votes. Therefore, according to that law, the second round was held with Khofifah-Mudjiono and Soekarwo-Saifullah as the selected candidates with 25.3% and 25.5% of the total votes, respectively (Kompas.com 2008a).
East Java electoral commission then announced Soekarwo and Saifullah Yusuf as the winners with 7.669.721 votes (50.2% of total valid votes). Despite the victory of Saoekarwo-Saifullah, Khofifah would accept the result of the election, saying that the electoral commission was being unfair and had intentionally added several votes for Soekarwo, particularly in three districts of Madura Island: Bangkalan, Sampang, and Pamekasan (Kompas.com 2008j). After complaining to the constitutional court, the third round of the election held in those three districts with a different mechanism. In Bangkalan and Sampang, the voters were asked to vote again, while the electoral commission only recounted the votes gained in the second-round election in Pamekasan (Kompas.com 2008j).
In 2013, Khofifah joined the election again. Khofifah met Soekarwo and Saifullah for the second time; however, there were some differences in this election compared with the previous one as her vice-governor candidate was Herman, a former head of East Java police headquarters. Unfortunately, her candidacy in the 2013 election was canceled by the East Java electoral commission before the election. The cancellation was based on her backing political parties (Kebangkitan Bangsa Party (hereafter called PKB), PKPB, PKPI, Matahari Bangsa Party (PMB), Kedaulatan Party (PK), and PPNUI ) to fulfill the 15% total valid votes. The problem was the unclear stance of PK and PPNUI because, besides supporting Khofifah, they also supported Soekarwo-Saifullah, the incumbent. The problem was from the internal of both parties. The statement letters from the central board of PK and PPNUI supported Khofifah-Herman while their East Java provincial board supported Soekarwo-Saifullah (Kompas.com 2013e).
To decide where were the votes of PK and PPNUI belonged, five commissioners of the electoral commission held a meeting. The ended in deadlock, so they agreed to vote in order to decide the decision. Three of them agreed that PK and PPNUI belonged to Soekarwo-Saifullah, while only one of them agreed that the votes belonged to Khofifah and the other one abstained (Kompas.com, 2013d. Without PK and PPNUI on her side, Khofifah's backing political parties only had 14.81% valid votes in total. Which meant they did not fulfill the 15% requirement; hence, she could not stand for the election. After a long process, she was finally able to stand for the election as her protest to Election Organization Ethics Council or Dewan Kehormatan Penyelenggara Pemilu (DKPP) was accepted (Kompas.com 2013l). Before that, the head of the central board of PPNUI, Yusuf Humaidi, also reported his secretary-general, Andi William, to the police because of falsifying his signature that gave his party support to Soekarwo-Saifullah (Kompas.com 2013e).
Despite generous support for her from various groups of people, she failed to win the election with only 37.62% of the votes while Soekarwo-Saifullah got 47.25%. As she saw so many regulations were broken, she complained to the national judicial court (Kompas.com 2013m); unfortunately, the judicial court refused all her claims (Kompas.com 2013r). Interestingly, less than a month after that decision, the head of the national judicial court was caught by the Corruption Eradication Commission or Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) because of bribery for winning the election of the head of Gunung Mas District, South Kalimantan Province, and Lebak District (Kompas.com 2013a). At that time, Akil said that, supposedly, Khofifah was the winner in the East Java gubernatorial election. He was not sure why Khofifah did not win that dispute in the Judicial Court. According to the facts, each election had a different dynamic reflecting on various issues. In the 2008 election, more various issues appeared for every factor, whereas, in the 2013 election, issues were more concentrated on political factors.
All the stories on Khofifah in the 2008 and the 2013 East Java gubernatorial elections result from researcher readings and analysis on the news reported by Kompas.com. These reports enable researchers and readers of this online news to understand many facts around the process of both elections. It reflects the power of media in providing and directing information to people. Without information collected and reported by the media, it will be hard for the public to know in detail what happens around the elections because they are, in fact, at a distance from the process of elections. The East Java gubernatorial elections seem to be a direct election by the people; however, before people or voters vote for the candidates, many institutions and procedures are involved in determining which candidates present in the ballot paper.
Media plays a critical role in telling the people about the process. Media can package what information or issues they want to share with the people and form a mindset or understanding of the people toward the factors involved in a particular candidate's failure or success. Media also can choose its position: whether they want to provide balanced information for each candidate or in favor of a particular candidate. In other words, the media can frame the information or issues they would like to share. They have the power to shape their readers' minds. The researcher extracted the following factors from news reported by Kompas.com reflecting this online news' frame on the issue.

Political factors
Barriers identified in this category were from the political party is Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the East Java electoral commission, the East Java committee for monitoring elections, and the constitutional court. The 2008 election demonstrated a political barrier to Khofifah's election. She was basically from PKB; however, at the time of the election, the party conflicted. The central board had fragmented into three factions, the PKB version of Muhaimin, Gusdur, and Kebangkitan Nasional Ulama Party (PKNU), a new party formed by some of the board members. The latest party did not develop and finally died. Each of the factions supported a different pair of candidates, and it was tough for Khofifah to find a party to support her. She became the latecomer in the competition, supported by PPP and some small parties that did not have seats in the East Java Parliament. The fragmentation of PKB led to a fragmentation of choice among its members and supporters. Some of them supported Khofifah; however, others voted for Soenarjo and Ali Maschan Moesa.
In the 2013 election, Khofifah was proposed by the PKB to stand in the election; however, neither the seats that PKB had in the East Java Parliament nor the number of valid votes it had gained in the 2009 parliamentary election was enough to support her candidacy. She needed support from other parties to fulfill the 15% of valid votes requirement for being a candidate, as required by Article 36 of Government Regulations Number 6 the year 2005. Unfortunately, it became a long and complicated journey for her because the two parties that supported her also supported another candidate. She had to fight vigorously, even at the beginning of the election; also, her support from PKB was not trustworthy (Kompas.com 2013s).
The nomination of Khofifah, which was supported by Islamic parties, shows that Muslims' existence is the basis of support. In addition, the difference in internal party votes regarding the nomination of leaders is a party conflict that has developed since the New Order era in which Islamic groups participated in enlivening national politics. Ufen (2008) shows that Islamic political parties have become contestants in the national elections and have a reasonably strong mass base from villages and Islamic boarding schools. Previous studies have shown that strong Islamic political parties in Indonesia are Nahdlatul Ulama's encouragement (Barton 2014, Fealy & Bush 2014.

Nahdlatul Ulama
PKB was established by cadres of NU, known as moderate Muslim organizations. NU was established in 1926 by Muslim scholars (Kiai-Ulama) who owned Islamic boarding schools in East Java; therefore, East Java is known as the basis of NU. In elections, the votes of NU's members become a significant consideration for any candidate. PKB was formed to accommodate the voices of NU's members in politics. As Qodari in Kompas.com (2008i), a prominent Indonesian political consultant, argues: "NU's members are a big influence in the elections. A party can win the election by only winning their votes." Unfortunately, in the first round of the 2008 elections, East Java NU's board members were also in conflict. NU's cadres supported four; Khofifah, Ali Maschan Moesa, Achmady, and Saifullah Yusuf from the five candidates. Thus, the votes from members of NU were divided among all of these candidates. In the second round of the 2008 election, NU's members and its board's fragmentation was prominent. The head of NU's national board, Hasyim Muzadi, encouraged NU members to vote for Khofifah; however, Gusdur, the fourth President of Indonesia and grandson of NU's founder, conflicted with Hasyim. Furthermore, Saifullah Yusuf, a candidate for vice governor, was a nephew of Gusdur and head of Anshor (NU's youth wing). It could be predicted that Gusdur would ask NU members to vote for Soekarwo-Saifullah Yusuf. Muhaimin Iskandar, the head of PKB, had already stated that PKB would support them (Kompas.com 2008k). The same situation occurred in the 2013 election. The votes of NU's members were divided between Khofifah-Herman and Soekarwo-Saifullah Yusuf. Soekarwo-Saifullah Yusuf won the election.
Even though the PKB is a party affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama, in its development, PKB often clashes with Nahdlatul Ulama figures because of different perspectives. Jati (2012) shows that the existence of organizational conflicts within PKB also influences Nahdlatul Ulama's dynamics. Even so, PKB and other Islamic parties affiliated with NU cannot be separated from NU because they were born from NU. Previous studies have shown that these political parties provide a broad network of Kiai and NU figures into national politics so that NU can reach large masses of people (Pribadi 2013, Rusyda 2015, Ishomuddin et al. 2019.

Committee for monitoring of election and constitutional court
In the 2008 and 2013 elections, this monitoring institution did not work well, giving the advantage to individual candidates and disadvantaging others, including Khofifah. For example, Kompas. com (2008g) reported that, in the quiet period (1-3 November 2008), advertisements for the pair of candidates Soekarwo-Saifullah often appeared on the local television channels. The advertisement asked people to vote for these candidates. Whereas, Part 1 of Article 55 of Government Regulations Number 6 the year 2005 stated that a campaign is run within 14 days and ends three days before the election. Part 2 of the same article adds the three days before the election date mentioned in Part 1 is a quiet period.
There was also a black campaign conducted for Khofifah. For instance, in the district of Kediri, there were many posters hung or taped to electricity poles, houses, or small restaurants with Khofifah-Mudjiono's pictures and the symbol of the holy cross, informing people that Khofifah was supported by PDS, a party established by the Christian community (Kompas.com 2008l). This kind of poster would ruin Khofifah's image as a prominent Muslim leader in Muslim community areas.
In the 2013 election, Khofifah's supporters found that the election committee did the votes, not the real voters, in some polling stations. They did it to ensure that the pairs of candidates they supported won (Kompas.com 2013m). There were also civil servants involved in the election campaign (Kompas. com 2013q); however, it is clear that in an election for pairs of candidates, it is forbidden to involve civil servants, members of Indonesia's army, navy, air force, and police corps to be participants or campaigners in the election campaign, as mentioned in Article 62 of Government Regulations Number 6 the year 2005. Elections in Indonesia are held on the principle of openness. Ibrahim (2018) states that the General election commissions, as a state institution, has to ensure that elections take place directly, publicly, freely, secretly, honestly, and legally. If the general election commissions cannot guarantee and implement this, they have deviated from their duties. Previous studies have suggested that an unfair electoral system can impact governance (Rose & Mishler 2009, Febriansyah et al. 2020).
In the 2008 election, Khofifah's complaint to the constitutional court was accepted. A third round of the election was held in East Java, Bangkalan, Sampang, and Pamekasan (Kompas.com 2008h); however, in the 2013 election, Khofifah's protest was not accepted because the decision had been determined before the corruption case in the constitutional court was revealed. The head of the constitutional court has been proven guilty of corruption. It led to his statement stating that Khofifah was the one who won the dispute; however, this did not affect the decision made by the constitutional court, considering that the institution is the highest court in the Indonesian legal system (Kompas. com 2013c).

Socio-economic factors
Barriers identified in this category are bargaining by the political parties to support voters' candidacies, bribery, and misuse of power by the incumbent to start a campaign well before the day of the election.

Bargaining with political parties and bribery to voters
It would be interesting to ask how much money should a candidate pay to the parties that would support someone to be a candidate for governor. If it was not for money, what would those parties get when they were successfully elected. Answers to these questions are not easy to find; it is like something that can be felt but cannot be seen. When in the 2013 election, two small parties that did not even have seats in parliament gave their support to two candidates, questions about money looked likely to be answered. In the Election Organization Ethics Council, the head of the national board of PK, Denny M Cilah, stated that some persons persuaded him by saying that he would be given a fantastic amount of money if he wanted to change the party's support from Khofifah-Herman to Soekarwo-Saifullah. Denny even stated that the election of East Java is crazy (Kompas.com 2013f).
Money politics is a method that has long been used by political actors to achieve political interests. Karto & Khisni (2020) states that money politics, apart from making elections dishonorable, also cause expensive political costs and are prone to corruption in the future. Previous studies have shown that money politics is related to vote-buying, peddling influence, and political corruption (Aluko 2002, Aspinall 2005, Azmi & Zainudin 2020. Related to voters' bribery, Pramono Anung, secretary of Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan Party (PDIP), in his speech in the campaign for Bambang-Said in the 2013 election, stated that he would give two million rupiahs to anyone who could catch a person offering bribes. It was aimed to make the election clean and fair. Anung in Kompas.com (2013o) stated: "Bring the person to a police station, let us know, we would give the money." His statement implies there was a practice of bribery that went on in the 2013 election. Bribery, also known as money politics, can be suspected but is hard to detect. Mokodompis et al. (2018) stated that bribery is a form of corruption because it seeks to influence others by giving money. Misuse of power to start a campaign by the incumbent, far before the day of the election As the incumbents running in the 2013 election again gave certain advantages to Soekarwo-Saifullah. For example, long before the election was held, more than 6.000 Forest Society members across East Java Province gathered in the Jatim Expo building to state their support for Soekarwo and Saifullah to declare their readiness to stand for the 2013 election. All of the meeting participants wore the same T-shirt, given by Soekarwo-Saifullah, with their picture and name on the front. According to Kompas.com (2013j), when the reporter asked Saifullah whether this was an early campaign, he answered: "We are just announcing that we will stand again in the election, not campaigning. The time to the campaign is still far."

Socio-cultural factors
Barriers identified in this category include voters' unpredictable attitudes, primordial assumptions based on ethnicity and geographical location, and gender.

Unpredictable attitudes of voters
It was not easy to determine voters' attitudes from the media articles. Although many of them supported Khofifah in both elections (Kompas.com 2008d(Kompas.com , 2013b, many of them did not vote for her, choosing not to vote by not coming to the polling station or by coming but intentionally using the wrong method of voting so their votes could not be counted (Kompas.com 2008a;2013h). It could not be guaranteed that female voters would vote for Khofifah (Kompas.com 2008c;2008i;2008d).

Primordial assumption based on ethnicity and geographical location
The election atmosphere cannot be separated from the diversity of backgrounds of the people of East Java. For instance, Madiun, Blitar, and Ngawi districts were well-known as Mataraman Region, in which their people were recognized as having nationalist views. Therefore, Khofifah would not have been a popular choice in the election. Meanwhile, districts known as tapal kuda, such as Madura Island, Pasuruan, Probolinggo, Situbondo, and Banyuwangi, a region for NU followers, were divided into conflict in PKB and NU (Kompas.com 2008f;2013k).

Gender
Articles on Kompas.com provide an exciting answer: did gender matter in the East Java election? Being a woman was not a barrier for Khofifah because of her popularity, proven hard work, and religiosity. KH Mustafa Bishri, known as "Gus Mus," one of the advisors to the national board of NU in Kompas.com (2008b), said: "…there is no problem for a woman to be governor…" Furthermore, Nina Susilo, a Kompas.com's reporter who accompanied Khofifah for a day to observe her campaign in Kompas.com (2008e), said: "Khofifah is a kind person. She is a hard worker, asleep after midnight." A Muslim scholar in Kediri stated that he prayed that Khofifah would win the election. In Kompas. com 28 August 2013 stated: "He knew exactly how this lady works. She has been a heroine since she was young. Her struggle for a better Muslim is undoubted."

Conclusion
This media research identified some interesting findings on factors contributing to the failure of Khofifah Indar Parawansa to win East Java gubernatorial elections in 2008 and 2013. Kompas.com news proved that political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural factors inhibited her from successfully winning the elections; however, political aspects more essential. Political parties, Nahdaltul Ulama, electoral commissioner, the committee for monitoring of election, the judicial court are part of the political aspects that contributed to her failure. Interestingly, the gender issue was not categorized as influencing Khofifah's failure in either the 2008 or 2013 East Java gubernatorial elections. This research shows that having party gatekeepers and changing the electoral system is favorable and essential for women to be elected to office successfully.
Media certainly plays an essential role in supporting female candidates to succeed in politics, not only in portraying women or using media as a campaign tool but also in reporting the process of elections fairly. Thus, the public will understand and be aware of the process of election. In this case, the media functions as a "watchdog" that helps women to get fair treatment in the election. Media also shows its power in shaping people's perceptions of the process of elections. It can frame issues or facts that it wants to provide to the public-in other words, demonstrating its influential role to direct people's behavior or preference in the election.