On June 27, Indonesians flocked to polling stations across the country to vote in local elections. On the ballot were mayors, district heads, and governors in 171 of Indonesia’s more than 500 electorates.

The results delivered few surprises. Parties that have a long-term base of support in this or that region retained that support. The majority of the thirteen parties in parliament back President Joko Widodo — only three are outside the government — and a majority of new governors are allies of Widodo. The one twist came at the local level, where some party branches that support Widodo at the national level threw their weight behind parties that oppose him. In the key region of North Sumatra, Widodo’s party went down in defeat under these circumstances. Both the pro- and anti-Widodo parties are claiming victory in the aftermath.

More than anything, though, the elections once again threw into sharp relief the barren terrain of Indonesian politics — the vicious result of the 1965 massacres, which saw hundreds of thousands of leftists slaughtered at the hands of the Indonesian military. The Communist Party, then one of the largest in the world, was wiped out in one fell swoop. Leftist ideas became verboten. Popular mass-based organizations were exterminated. Since the massacres, a tight control on historical knowledge has eliminated almost all memory of past popular struggles or left-wing thought. Marxism remains legally banned, with significant penalties (including imprisonment) for “spreading widely” such ideas.