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Jokowi's volunteers to continue movement
After successfully seeing President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla inaugurated on Monday, Jokowiâs volunteers are expanding their movement with the purpose of maintaining peopleâs participation, which they consider a key factor in determining the countryâs future
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fter successfully seeing President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla inaugurated on Monday, Jokowi's volunteers are expanding their movement with the purpose of maintaining people's participation, which they consider a key factor in determining the country's future.
'The volunteers, especially the ones who were involved in the inauguration, are currently preparing a concept [to continue the movement], which we call participation units,' said Raharja Waluya Jati, a presidium member of one of the volunteer organizations, which calls itself Seknas Jokowi.
Jati said that the purpose of the units was to maintain people's participation, not only during the election process but also during the implementation of the programs of Jokowi's government.
According to Raharja, the reason the volunteer groups initiated such a movement was the awareness that Jokowi's plan for reform could be thwarted by the bureaucracy.
'Bureaucracy in Indonesia is still 'gripped' by the old bureaucratic tradition, so Jokowi needs new and fresh people who can be involved to monitor the implementation of the government programs that have been promised,' he added.
'It is useless if Jokowi has good programs, but in the middle of the process or at the grassroots level they are sabotaged.'
On Monday, several volunteer organizations, including Seknas Jokowi and Projo, launched the movement, which they called Ge-ruduk ' an acronym for 'Gerakan Rakyat 20 Oktober' (People's Movement on Oct. 20) ' initially intended solely to see the inauguration through without a hitch.
The movement appears set to ensure the same for the fledging administration.
More than 40,000 people were involved in inauguration festivities, the first such occurrence in Indonesian history.
'If previously people were only mobilized for development, then Monday's events showed us that people's participation could become the new pattern for Jokowi's government,' said Muhammad Yamin, another presidium member of Seknas Jokowi.
Meanwhile, Siti Zuhro, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said that there was a possibility for those volunteer organizations to create a political party, after successfully mobilizing their networks for the inauguration and proving their solidity.
'When their network is strong enough and they are politically ready, they could transform into a political party. It is like the Prosperous Justice Party [PKS] with its network in colleges,' she told The Jakarta Post.
She further said that in such a scenario, a political figure would be needed, and Jokowi would probably become a political figure who could lead them.
'Maybe Jokowi would be prepared for the 2019 presidential election. Such a possibility is open. In politics, everything is possible and we can see where this goes,' she added.
She said, however, that such a move would only be possible in one or two years, because currently those organizations were still focusing on supporting Jokowi's administration.
Separately, political analyst Maswadi Rauf of the University of Indonesia discounted the idea that Jokowi's volunteer organizations should form a political party. 'Maybe they are still euphoric, after successfully supporting Jokowi to become the president. These volunteers are overzealous,' he added. (ask)
