Prabowo and his running mate, entrepreneur Sandiaga Uno, agreed that the country should continue with the deradicalisation programme, but the former general said the main source of terrorism came from “other countries”.

“I know very well terrorists were sent from other countries,” he said, citing his experience setting up Indonesia’s first anti-terror unit with Luhut Panjaitan, the current coordinating minister for maritime affairs and former commander of the elite special forces. “Terrorists are controlled by non-Muslims. I reject the notion that Muslims are terrorists.”

Indonesian extremists were only susceptible to radicalisation due to economic inequality, he said.

“Homegrown terrorists come from injustice, despair and economic inequality, and they were feeling hurt so they were susceptible to radicalism. I support a deradicalisation programme. When I am president, I will invest heavily in healthcare and education to help them.”

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Prabowo’s statements were seen by analysts as part of his bid to cultivate an image of himself as a defender of Islam in the run-up to the election, where about 192 million Indonesians are eligible to vote.

He has sought to please his supporters from the so-called 212 movement, a group of conservative and hardline Muslims who were able to mobilise tens of thousands on Jakarta’s street in December 2016 to rally for the downfall of Jakarta’s Chinese-Christian governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama or Ahok. Ahok was ultimately jailed for two years for blasphemy.

In a rally on Monday night, Prabowo also said that Islam in Indonesia is not a threat to anyone and that it is a “blessing from God”.

“Muslim voters are priority for all presidential contenders in Indonesia, so it’s no surprise that they are trying to get these votes by building an image as a pious Muslim,” said Pangi Syarwi Chaniago, executive director at Jakarta-based think tank Voxpol Center Research and Consulting.

Sidney Jones, a security analyst and director of the Jakarta-based think tank Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, responded to Prabowo’s claim on Twitter, saying: “Sorry, you cannot direct [source of] terrorism to outside actors, there are homegrown problems that you have to understand.”

The two-hour debate, in which most of the sparring was done by Widodo and Prabowo, touched on other issues such as human rights, law supremacy and corruption.

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On bringing human rights perpetrators to justice, Widodo admitted he had been hampered by a lack of evidence, but defended his record of having no “past burdens” – likely a veiled dig at Prabowo, who has been accused of human rights violations during the reign of Suharto.

Human rights activists on social media called out Widodo over his rights record.

Andreas Harsono from Human Rights Watch Indonesia said the Jokowi administration “took few steps in 2018 to protect the rights of marginalised groups in Indonesia such as religious minorities and LGBT individuals”.

Amnesty International Indonesia also pointed out Widodo has yet to bring justice the offenders who threw acid on an investigator from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which some surveys have indicated is the country’s most trusted institution. The attack in April 2017 left Novel Baswedan blinded in one eye. He has since returned to work.

Human rights activists were also disappointed the debate did not touch on matters such as the country’s worsening religious intolerance and human rights violations in the troubled region of Papua.

In December, dozens of Indonesian construction workers were shot dead in Nduga, Papua, allegedly by Papua separatists, according to officials. More than 500 activists, including an Australian national, were detained by Indonesian authorities in a crackdown on December 1, a date considered by many in Papua as the region’s anniversary on their independence from the Dutch.

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Meanwhile, Prabowo received flak online after he indicated that corruption was not a problem “as long as the corrupted amount doesn’t reach trillions of rupiah”.

He made the comment in a response to Widodo’s question on why his party, the Great Indonesia Movement Party, nominates the most number of ex-graft convicts in the legislative election. Prabowo said the nominees had done their time in jail and that “maybe the amount that they corrupted is not that much”.

The four remaining presidential debates will be staged from February until a few weeks before the election, and will focus on a wide range of issues including energy, natural resources, infrastructure, education, healthcare, ideology, defence, and international policies.