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t'€™s been more than two years since Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo first set foot in Jakarta on his way to becoming the most popular Indonesian politician of all time, yet we still don'€™t know who the man really is. There has been so much cognitive dissonance regarding his actions in the past few weeks that many of his fervent supporters '€” mostly young people below 40 '€” are wondering whether the President is just another politician they used to like, and now hate with a burning passion.

Who is Jokowi, anyway?

Jokowi may not be a foreign agent and closeted Christian of Chinese descent pretending to be a Muslim to destroy Islam and revive communism, as his detractors persistently allege, but nor is he the champion of liberal values who will soon arrest the killers of the rights activist Munir Said Thalib, abolish the death penalty and put an end to the misery of the Ahmadiyah and Shiite minorities, as his supporters expected him to be. Nobody says it'€™s easy to fix Indonesia. There are so many problems to deal with.

But after 100 days in office, Jokowi has yet to give us an assurance of where he stands in this generational battle: Is he with us, the young Indonesians who seek a graft-free and more liberal Indonesia, or is he with the old guard doing everything they can to retain their grip on power?

Unlike ex-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was predictable despite (or perhaps because of) his indecisiveness, Jokowi can be as capricious as a speeding bajaj (three-wheeled taxi) in crowded Jakarta traffic. Like other politicians, Jokowi made promises and broke them (no horse-trading, Pak, remember?), just like that. He made ill-advised decisions too (a notoriously corrupt officer for the top job at the National Police, seriously?), and stood by them.

Is this the same Jokowi whom we defended in our social media accounts during the 2014 election? Is he the same person for whom we strained relations with friends and relatives on the other side of the political divide?

Even for his critics, his actions over the past few weeks seemed to be out of character. Jokowi may not be a savvy politician, but he is no friend, let alone defender, of people accused of massive corruption. It was so demoralizing to read the news that Jokowi may appoint a graft suspect as police chief. It is even more disheartening that he failed to stand by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in the latest '€œgecko vs crocodile'€ scuffle.

Some of his loyal supporters believe that Jokowi is acting like the clever kancil (lesser mouse-deer) from Indonesian fables. He may seem to be siding with the bad guys, but he is actually fooling them all. Jokowi, like the kancil, is skinny and weak, but he has the brain to outsmart the crocodiles and other predators much stronger and bigger than him.

Great, if true. But we have no time for such naivety. Indonesian politics is not a fable. Nor should it be a wayang spectacle where subtle power play and political arrangements behind closed doors decide everything. It is true that Indonesian politics is full of intrigue, and social media is abuzz with political gossip or '€œleaks'€. But Indonesia is a democracy now. People want transparency. If Jokowi truly is a reformer and striving to do the right thing then he must show it to us. We are no longer intrigued by shadowy Javanese politics.

We do have good reasons to believe that Jokowi is not part of the elite of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and that many of his questionable policies are the result of powerful pressure from the political parties that nominated him. It'€™s possible that Jokowi is now fighting the old guard alone in the front line '€” working around the clock to bring true reform to Indonesia. He could be facing the same fate as Tri Rismaharini, the Surabaya mayor who dared to challenge the PDI-P and had to endure intense political pressure and even death threats. For this, no doubt he deserves our support. But Jokowi has not clearly shown us where he stands. Is he the clever kancil or the wayang puppet of the old guard?

His meeting on Thursday with Prabowo Subianto, his former rival in the presidential election, only muddied the water. Is he turning against PDI-P leader Megawati Soekarnoputri and allying with Prabowo? Is that even possible? If yes, will Prabowo be less intrusive than Megawati?

The President should know that we elected him because we thought he represented a break from the past, new blood that would open a new chapter in Indonesian political history. We believed that he embodied the hope of many young Indonesians seeking to destroy the undying legacies of the New Order. Jokowi may be the symbol of hope, but he isn'€™t the hope itself. We may lose hope in Jokowi, but we shall never lose hope for change.

Yes, only Nixon goes to China. And realpolitik has a logic of its own. And change may come gradually. But we are left too far behind. We have grown tired of all the political dramas, the long and tedious
wayang spectacle of our political life. It is now time to reap the fruits of democracy and cut the tentacles of the oligarchy within the existing political system once and for all.

We all hope that Jokowi as President can lead us in this fight, that he will carry the banner of reform and win the battle against corruption and the abusive elite. But this is still our fight, not Jokowi'€™s alone. The old guard within the Great Indonesia Coalition and the Red-and-White Coalition should know: the fight for reform will go on '€” with or without Jokowi.