WHEN the citizens of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, voted for Basuki Tjahaja Purnama as their vice-governor in 2012, it seemed a hopeful moment. He and his popular boss, Joko Widodo, had promised a bold programme of urban renewal to save the creaky, sinking and car-clogged metropolis. What’s more, the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy seemed to enhance its reputation for tolerance. Mr Basuki,known as Ahok, is ethnic Chinese and a Christian: rarely before had an Indonesian from a minority community and religion risen so high.

Suddenly, Indonesia’s reputation for tolerance is in question. After Mr Joko, or Jokowi, ran for president and won by a landslide two years ago, Ahok assumed the Jakarta governorship. Just three months ago, Ahok still looked to be a shoo-in for the gubernatorial race next February. Since then, however, huge rallies organised by hardline Islamist groups have brought hundreds of thousands of anti-Ahok protesters to central Jakarta. Because of those protests, he himself is in court on blasphemy charges.

Ahok is arrogant, impatient and coarse—offending courteous Javanese manners. But he is effective: Jakartans credit him with improving congestion, flood control and health care. In September he told some fishermen that he understood why some would not vote for him, because they were deceived by those claiming that the Koran forbids Muslims to be governed by a kafir. Islamists promptly accused Ahok of insulting the Koran. The rallies they organised around the National Monument were huge. One on November 4th, with about 200,000 protesters, turned violent. The most recent, a rally and mass prayer meeting on December 2nd, was twice as big, but ended peacefully after Jokowi came to address it. By then it was clear that the protesters had got their way and that Ahok would be prosecuted and probably jailed.

It is all regrettable. Ahok was extremely tactless. But if he is guilty of a crime, it is hard to see who the victim is. Jokowi was reluctant to see his former sidekick prosecuted, but ultimately seems to have relented. The police were sharply divided, too, over whether to prosecute. The country’s biggest mainstream Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, made itself scarce. The bookish leader of the next biggest complained that it was easier to get people to go to a demonstration than to a library.

This left the hardliners to make the running, led by the thuggish, hypocritical Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI) (who do not hassle police-run brothels). Through social media, they stirred up vitriol aimed at ethnic Chinese. The FPI’s footsoldiers have fanned out into Jakarta’s kampung (village-like settlements). One of the places to which they took money and aid is Pasar Ikan, a flood-prone area near the old port that Ahok cleared of tenants in April with little warning or compensation. Some of the families have since returned to adjacent land and, with FPI help, rebuilt their mosque. Only its name has changed: from al-Ikhlas—“sincerity”—to al-Jihad.

None of this means that Indonesia is lurching in a violently Islamist direction. For instance, although the jihadists of Islamic State have claimed a handful of adherents among young Indonesians, the organisation and its methods are condemned even by FPI hardliners. Yes, the aims of those hardliners include changing the constitution to force Muslims to follow Islamic law and curbing minorities’ rights. But little suggests that most recent protesters cared about such things. Many attended the gathering on December 2nd out of pride at taking part in such a vast communal prayer meeting. And in Pasar Ikan residents who attended the protests claim that their problem with Ahok is certainly not that he is ethnic Chinese; nor, really, because of his perceived blasphemy; but simply because of his callous treatment of them. If the FPI hoped for fertile ground, they will have to look elsewhere.

Yet, for two reasons, the implications of the Ahok saga will be long-lasting. First, however much they deny it, Ahok’s rivals in the governor’s race gain from his travails. And that race is fast becoming a proxy for the next presidential one, in 2019. At the moment Jokowi’s popularity is sky-high. The only way for presidential hopefuls to dent him is to link him to his former vice-governor. As it is, the governor’s race was transformed in September when Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono resigned his army commission to run for the job. The telegenic, Harvard-educated 38-year-old is the elder son of the previous president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. His family has national aspirations for him.

Who are the real fifth columnists?

Second, and of much more concern than the likelihood of politicians using Ahok’s predicament for political gain, are machinations by army generals. The FPI itself is a creation of the security forces, after the dictatorship of the late Suharto, to counter leftist students. Today, it remains useful for the army to back the FPI as a way of reasserting the domestic influence it lost after democratisation in the late 1990s. Many generals, like the FPI, see enemies everywhere, including ethnic Chinese Indonesians who control successful businesses, some of them close to Ahok. Meanwhile, the ambitious if somewhat eccentric army chief, Gatot Nurmantyo, sees China as a hostile power waging a “proxy war” aimed at corrupting Indonesia’s youth. He also accuses China of seizing the economy’s commanding heights (Jokowi has encouraged a lot of mainland Chinese investment in infrastructure).

In this context, the growing insinuation that Ahok is in some sense a Chinese fifth columnist is disturbing. Parts of the army were behind bloody riots aimed at ethnic-Chinese Indonesians in 1998, and the army was central to the vast anti-Chinese pogroms of 1965. At best, Ahok’s persecution represents a blow to the rights of all Indonesian minorities—Ahmadiyah, Christians and indeed gay people. At worst, the risk of communal bloodshed like that of two decades ago is closer. Indonesians should jealously guard their hard-earned reputation for tolerance.