President Jokowi and the Hope and Change Campaign

I have always been fascinated with the construction of political campaigns, and the mention of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's presidential campaign being compared to Barack Obama's campaign was interesting to me. Ima Abdulrahim, executive director of the Indonesian think tank The Habibie Center spoke to us on July 22 at our hotel about Indonesia under the Jokowi administration. (Side note: The Habibie Center focuses on democracy and human rights and was created by former president BJ Habibie and is very well regarded both in the region and beyond. )

According to Ima, during his campaign, the Indonesian progressive community and creative community was extremely excited about Jokowi. His campaign was seen as a "change" campaign as Jokowi was young, not associated with the political cartels, he did not come from a well-connected family, and he promised to attack corruption, which he had done as Governor of Jakarta. Unlike candidates in past elections, he gained a lot of support and people volunteered for the campaign in an unprecedented way. Social media was also a large part of his campaign.

However, since inauguration, expectations have fallen flat and many are disappointed with his performance, despite having made some good policy changes. One of the major problems seems to be his being beholden to the party of Megawati, the PDI-P, who was the one who nominated him as a presidential candidate. In Indonesian politics, a presidential candidate has to be nominated by a party, and seeing his rise to popularity Megawati nominated him as the candidate for her party. Since this party is very much a part of the political cartel system, some of his cabinet appointments seem to be purely to pay lip service to the patronage system, with appointments of ministers who were either known to be very corrupt or simply unqualified. The police chief appointment was especially disappointing, and though Jokowi said he wanted to eradicate corruption, he is considered to have weakened the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK).

However, there have been some policy changes that have been more happily accepted by his supporters, such as his removal of the fuel subsidies soon after inauguration. This move was fought against by his own party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).