52 Asia The Economist March 26th 2022
W
ho canforget that moment, eight
years ago, when a slight former
furniture salesman with a winning grin
rose to the presidency of Indonesia? Joko
Widodo, known as Jokowi, had a modest
upbringing in the small city of Solo in
Central Java. He had become that city’s
mayor, from where his reputation for
rolling up his sleeves and fixing pro
blems had propelled him to the gover
norship of Jakarta, the country’s sprawl
ing capital, and then to the presidential
palace. A man of the people, he connect
ed with voters in the markets and back
alleys. For the first time, a ruler did not
hail from the army or the country’s elites.
And so, in the story of Indonesia’s de
mocratisation, Jokowi’s election in 2014
marked a decisive break from the era of
Suharto, the dictator whose regime had
crumbled in 1998.
And who can fail now to notice omi
nous parallels emerging with the late
strongman, who in effect abolished
politics, coopting the army along the
way? Jokowi’s second term ends in 2024,
after which he has to step down. Yet
Jokowi’s powerful henchmen, if not yet
the man himself, muse aloud about his
staying on by altering the constitution to
extend his term by three years. Why, asks
Luhut Panjaitan, a minister and sidekick,
go to the unnecessary expense of elec
tions? Why risk (unspecified) election
violence? Besides, argues the former
general of the Suharto era, calls for Joko
wi to stay abound on social media. Mr
Luhut says he and others are merely
“trying to accommodate the aspirations
of the public from this big data”.
Presidential hopefuls who cry foul,
such as the governor of Jakarta, Anies
Baswedan, are dismissed as selfserving.
The views of the main political parties
are more consequential: the support oftwothirds of parliament is required to
amend the constitution. Gerindra, the
thirdlargest party, says it opposes an
amendment. So do members of the Indo
nesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or
pdi-p, to which the president belongs.
But Jokowi’s talents for cooption are
legend. Gerindra’s leader, another former
general, Prabowo Subianto, twice ran for
president against Jokowi, but is now de
fence minister. Two weeks ago Jokowi
invited pdi-p’s boss, Megawati Sukarno
putri, to his palace in Bogor, west of the
capital. She knows it well, both as a former
president herself and as a daughter of
Sukarno, the country’s independence
leader. She is nothing if not a dynast, and
the president could offer her daughter,
Puan Maharani, parliament’s speaker, the
vicepresidency. Democratic norms, says a
former minister, are hanging by a thread.
Power has changed Jokowi. Explana
tions for his quest to extend his rule in
clude the fact that the nondynast has
turned dynast himself. He is known to be
keen to see his son, who has followed in
his footsteps as mayor of Solo, becomegovernor of Central Java, a province of
some 37m people.
Another is Jokowi’s grand scheme to
carve a new capital, Nusantara, out of the
jungle of East Kalimantan province on
the island of Borneo. The justification is
that the current capital is gridlocked,
sinking and floodprone. But as Mr Anies
argues, Jakarta is fixing its problems by
cutting groundwater extraction and
building sea walls. Bureaucrats and their
families hate the idea of moving. The
main boosters—from the political and
business elite around Jokowi—have land
and other interests around the site. If
Jokowi loses power it is much less likely
the $35bn white elephant will get built.
Strolling in the garden of the palace in
Bogor, Jokowi once rehearsed Suharto’s
qualities for Banyan’s benefit: the dicta
tor got stuff done. Jokowi’s obsession,
too, is for building things—roads, ports,
power plants and more. The difference,
says a former ally, is that Suharto had a
team of technocrats to set economic
priorities; he then got his business cro
nies to carry out the plan. By contrast,
Jokowi’s cronies set the priorities.
In the end cronyism, corruption and
economic crisis did for an outoftouch
Suharto. A whiff of economic crisis is in
the air again, exacerbated by the war in
Ukraine. Jokowi frets that sharp in
creases in the price of cooking oil are
distressing poorer households. Prices of
fuel, wheat and other foodstuffs are
rising, too. That may be just the begin
ning. Yet Jokowi seems less attuned to
the anger building among the middle
class over the possibility of a power grab.
The risks of a twin economic and politi
cal backlash are clear. If Jokowi is not
careful, the man whom popular acclaim
brought to power may yet be confronted
by raging popular discontent.The president’s people are contemplating an assault on Indonesia’s democracyBanyan Jokowi’s folly
does not include the cost of moving de
fence officials currently in situ, which Mr
Yoon’s own party estimates at another
120bn won. And while the defence minis
try is already amply fortified, bunker and
all, putting the president there would al
low a missile strike to wipe out both mili
tary and political leadership in one fell
swoop. A petition opposing the move
quickly reached the 200,000 signatures
needed to trigger an official reply.
My Yoon’s new neighbours are not
thrilled either. In Samgakji, a dense, low
rise district next to the defence ministry,some businessowners welcomed the
prospect of increased footfall. But many
more seemed concerned about what else
might come along with it: more traffic, an
noying new security rules and the disrup
tive rabble of demonstrators and accompa
nying police officers that frequently fill
Gwanghwamun. “Where do you think
they’re going to protest?” grumbles the
owner of a local drycleaner. “They’re go
ing to protest in front of my shop.”
Moon Jaein, the outgoing president,
tried to make a similar move before admit
ting defeat in the face of logistical problems. His Minjoo party argues that a pres
identelect lacks the authority to move a
government building or to allocate funds
for such a move.
South Koreans complain that Mr Yoon
promised on the campaign trail that his top
priority would be addressing the economic
damage caused by covid19. Instead he has
decided to spend political capital forcing
through a personal project. With his popu
larity already at a historic low for an in
coming president, Mr Yoonmayfind that
his attempt to bring the peoplecloser actu
ally drives them farther away.n