As Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo ( Jokowi ) prepares to leave office, Indonesia is still routinely lauded as one of Asia’s most important democracies.
Jokowi won the primary election in 2014 with the aim of reforming the Jakarta elite and improving government’s ability to serve the common people. He was backed by some enthusiastic followers of Indonesia’s Reformasi activity.
In 1998, the autocratic leader Suharto was overthrown by this movement, which pushed for a transition to democracy in the years that followed. However, Jokowi has overseen a significant period of political reversals.
Under his view, the Indonesian government has hobbled political power institutions. This includes Indonesia’s once-lauded Corruption Eradication Commission, abbreviated as KPK.
A social position has been resumed by security forces like the police and the army. The government has banned big Islamic companies. Civil society organizations refer to a notably constrained political place.
They complain, for instance, about the government’s growing emphasis on the Electronic Information and Transactions Law to indict federal employees for libel and its growing commitment to apply force to protest.
In the social elite, Jokowi’s opponents are frequently the target of fraud and other alleged wrong.
In previous February’s national election, there were widespread accounts the authorities and other companies were pressuring community leaders to organize the ballot for Jokowi’s preferred candidate, Prabowo Subianto.
How did a guy who was once seen as the “new trust” for Indian democracy end up in this place? The response is a component of a worldwide narrative that has become increasingly well-known in recent years.
These times, it is usually not appointed coup leaders who destroy politics. Activities like those of Thailand and Myanmar in recent years are, pleasantly, no longer normal.
Rather, elected populist leaders hollow politics out from within. They do so by hobbling organizations, such as anti-corruption charges, which are meant to examine professional energy.
Jokowi has, in my watch, followed this style. In contrast to many populists, Jokowi not slammed his adversaries as traitors in his first speeches. He previously attempted to stoke racial animosity toward less-vulnerable people.
Instead, he placed himself as a chief who was truly able to comprehend and live up to the aspirations of common people.
His signature battle strategy was known as the “blusukan.” He may drop by quickly at a market, for example, to talk with common people about prices and other daily matters.
A former president, he was interested in the nitty-gritty of leadership, such as how to improve transportation services or build gardens. He was less interested in “abstract” beliefs like human right.
The implications of this theory were unveiled until Jokowi was elected leader. He maintained his conviction that wealthy officials had long neglected the aspirations of common citizens.
He continued to concentrate solely on improving living conditions and social security, which the average Indonesian wanted. And he constantly monitored public opinion using polls.
Maintaining common support and pleasant public needs was the essence of democracy, according to Jokowi. He was uninterested in governmental bodies that imposed restrictions on their functions, which are probably just as crucial to a functioning political system.
His administration, for instance, passed constitutional reforms that considerably weakened the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
Late last month, the Constitutional Court – headed by his brother-in-law – changed the rules on member time limits to enable Jokowi’s child, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to have for the evil presidency.
Many Indonesians saw this as a clear-cut and effective attempt to sway a key control body in order to maintain Jokowi’s dynastic hold on power. Even so, as Jokowi leaves office, he does so a very popular politician.
Jokowi gives power to a man with a much more turbulent history of democracy.
Prabowo Subianto is a former general with a history of alleged human rights violations that date to the late Suharto era. ( Although, like other senior military officers accused of responsibility for the Suharto regime’s well-documented record of human rights abuses, he was never convicted of any crimes ). Prabowo was close to the heart of that regime: indeed, he used to be Suharto’s son-in-law.
Prabowo has since reinvented himself as a fun-loving grandfather figure and Jokowi’s greatest fan, capitalizing on the president’s own popularity.
Prior to becoming his defense minister in 2019, Prabowo was one of Jokowi’s biggest rivals.
Prabowo portrayed himself as a fervent populist who furiously attacked his rivals in previous elections for allegedly selling Indonesia to foreigners. He promised to give the nation the necessary strong will to achieve greatness.
What kind of president Prabowo will be, we are yet to find out. His early political socialization as a prominent elite figure at the heart of the Suharto regime suggests that his innate instincts are likely to be utterly authoritarian.
He inherits from Jokowi a nation where democratic institutions have already been severely undermined and where there are numerous lessons to be learned on how to weaken them even more.
Edward Aspinall is professor in Southeast Asian politics, Australian National University
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.