IN LATE June the two candidates in Indonesia’s presidential race both held rallies in Jakarta, the capital. Supporters of Joko Widodo, known to all as Jokowi (pictured right), walked and cycled through the central business district. From a stage set up at a roundabout, Jokowi thanked his supporters in a brief, rather flat speech.

Prabowo Subianto (pictured left) held his rally at Bung Karno stadium, which seats more than 80,000. Trumpeters and drummers heralded his arrival in a white convertible. He was flanked by his running mate, Hatta Rajasa, and by leaders of the parties in his coalition—all wearing identical white shirts. The rally did not quite reach the theatrical heights of an event back in March, where he arrived by helicopter and pranced astride a bay charger. But he delivered a fiery speech, and was carried off on the shoulders of cheering supporters.

Vulgar showmanship, no doubt. But Mr Prabowo has run a devastating campaign against Jokowi, clawing his way back in opinion polls from a 39-point deficit. The election, which will be held on July 9th, is too close to call. On June 30th Jokowi was polling at 46% of the votes and Mr Prabowo at 42.6%.

Jokowi is an unusual politician. A mediocre orator, his appeal rests on his humble roots as a furniture seller, his can-do pragmatism and a reputation unsullied by corruption. He has no great fortune, and, unlike many of those born into political influence, was not educated abroad.

With a cupboard free of skeletons, he built a name for effective governance, first as mayor of the mid-sized Javanese city of Solo and then as governor of Jakarta. He was good at the unsexy problems of dredging canals, collecting rubbish and providing health care—life-improving things that ordinary people notice. He made a point of walking through neighbourhoods and listening to constituents—a rarity in Indonesia. He is often compared to Barack Obama for the way he energised voters—even before he officially launched his campaign.

The difference is that Mr Obama was a near-perfect campaigner. Jokowi has been disappointing. He never grasped that running for president is a different game from running for smaller offices. Promises of good governance are not enough. Someone close to his team says two failings stand out. First, Jokowi has lacked a ruthlessly professional campaign. His handlers have not swatted down the smears that could never be traced back to Mr Prabowo’s people: that Jokowi was secretly a Chinese, a Christian or a Communist, or that he was the puppet of Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president and the head of the party on whose ticket Jokowi is running. Second, in a country as large, diverse and complex as Indonesia, Jokowi needed to tell a broader story: here is what is wrong with Indonesia, and here is how I intend to fix it. Jokowi never developed these storytelling skills.

Yet the campaign is not merely about one candidate’s missed chances. It is also about how Mr Prabowo seized the initiative. While Jokowi started campaigning only in March, Mr Prabowo has in effect been doing so for a decade, having sought the presidency twice before. Both his ex-wife, Siti Hediati Hariyadi, daughter of the late dictator, Suharto, and his fabulously wealthy brother, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, have campaigned on his behalf. He also has the backing of two television tycoons—Aburizal Bakrie, who heads the Golkar party, and Hary Tanoesoedibjo. Between them they have five of Indonesia’s 12 terrestrial television networks.

One’s to lose, the other’s to win

Douglas Ramage of BowerGroupAsia, a business consultancy, credits Mr Prabowo with giving Indonesians “a message they want to hear: an assertive, muscular Indonesia that has lost control of its natural resources and had too much of its wealth taken by foreigners.” Mr Prabowo’s nationalist fulminations sound rather paranoid, and it is not clear that he believes them. But they seem to be working.

There is a darker side however. Mr Prabowo has long been dogged by talk of human-rights abuses: for instance, that in the late 1990s as an army general he ordered the abduction and torture of pro-democracy activists and helped stir up anti-Chinese riots in which many died. When Jokowi’s running-mate, Jusuf Kalla, raised the allegations during a debate, Mr Prabowo deflected them by saying he was simply a former soldier who did his duty. Military bluffness is part of his political persona.

Mr Prabowo has also expressed reservations about democracy. He has repeatedly expressed a desire for Indonesia to return to its original constitution, which placed great power in the hands of the president and provided for the holder of that office to be elected by the legislature rather than by popular vote. On June 28th he called direct elections “not appropriate for us”, and said that “much of our current political and economic systems go against our nation’s fundamental philosophy, laws and traditions…They do not suit our culture.”

Though Mr Prabowo later backtracked, many worry that he would see victory as a mandate to roll back direct elections. He could do considerable political damage just by trying. Marcus Mietzner, a specialist in Indonesian politics at Australian National University, believes that Mr Prabowo’s anti-democratic statements have turned Jokowi, the apparent agent of change, into “the candidate of the status quo. Under his presidency, democracy, with all of its flaws and deficiencies, would continue.”

As for their economic policies, both candidates have espoused protectionism. Jokowi’s appears milder. Foreign investors certainly prefer him: Deutsche Bank reports that if Mr Prabowo wins, 56% of investors surveyed would sell their Indonesian assets and just 13% would buy, while a Jokowi win would cause 74% to buy and just 6% to sell.

In truth their platforms are not radically different. Both want more roads and power; both want to keep in place a ban on exports of unprocessed mineral ore; and both say they worry about rising inequality and environmental degradation. Both, too, will have to manage fractious parliamentary coalitions. The two differ markedly, however, in both their personalities and their pasts. On July 9th Indonesians will decide how much that matters.