This research investigated the occurrence of face-threatening acts (FTAs) toward the hearer’s face and politeness strategies applied in the Indonesian vice-presidential candidate debates of 2024. A descriptive qualitative approach and discourse analysis method were employed in this research. This study used the second and the fourth Indonesian presidential debate of 2024 video as the data source. Using Brown and Levinson's theory of FTA and politeness strategy, the result of this study revealed that overall, negative FTA to hearer is more frequently appeared during the debates than positive FTA to hearer. Muhaimin (MI) performed negative FTAs to the hearer dominantly, Gibran (GR) performed negative FTAs and positive FTAs to the hearer equally, while Mahfud (MM) performed positive FTAs to the hearer dominantly. Besides, positive politeness is the most widely applied strategy during the debates. This research also indicated that power (P) and the absolute ranking of imposition (R) influenced the use of politeness strategies. Furthermore, it is suggested for the next researchers to investigate the face threatening acts from the side of the speaker (FTAs to speaker’s face) and explore the analysis of the payoffs that influenced the use of politeness strategy in political debate.

Keywords: face-threatening act (FTA), politeness strategies, presidential debate