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resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s nomination of Comr. Gen. Tito Karnavian as his sole candidate to replace retiring National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti overturned traditional practices of nominating candidates for strategic posts, including the top police post. Tito’s appointment as the new chief will be like swimming against the current — practically possible but coming with high risks and requiring extra effort and energy to succeed.

As experts have said, Tito’s appointment would very likely be met with strong resistance, if not opposition, from police generals who are not only older, but also graduated from the police academy ahead of him. Dealing with one’s seniors as subordinates in the institution has proven to be tricky, as experienced by former Police chief Gen. Sutarman.

Sutarman, a 1981 graduate of the National Police Academy, once had a senior officer as his deputy – Comr. Gen. Oegroseno, a 1978 graduate of the academy. Sutarman, who led the police force for nearly two years (October 2013 – January 2015), had to spend his first year of leadership putting up with Oegroseno’s demanding, though perhaps correct, stances on a number of popular issues. One instance was when Sutarman, through a circular, endorsed the use of hijabs for Muslim female officers. The decision was immediately annulled after Oegroseno publicly rejected the circular. Oegroseno eventually retired from active duty halfway into Sutarman’s tenure.

The President must have made the decision to nominate Tito after careful and thorough consideration. On Thursday, Jokowi maintained that his decision to nominate Tito was based on Tito’s competence and capability to establish effective communications with various parties, particularly with his seniors.

 Tito was the top graduate in his 1987 Police Academy class, an achievement for which he was granted the Adhi Makayasa Award by then-president Soeharto. Throughout his 29-year career in the police force, Tito has indeed made his name on the back of various achievements.

He received a significant promotion after leading the team of police detectives that in 2001 arrested Soeharto’s youngest son Hutomo Mandala Putra, more commonly known as Tommy Soeharto, who was convicted for his role in the murder of Supreme Court Justice Syafiuddin Kartasasmita.

Tito received another significant promotion when he and a number of police officers killed Malaysian terrorist fugitive Azahari Husin in November 2005. Under his leadership, the National Police’s counterterrorism unit Densus 88 arrested dozens of suspects in Poso and helped settle the conflict in the area.

 Tito was also among a group of officers who managed to foil the plans of a terrorist cell led by Malaysian fugitive Noordin M. Top in 2009.

In the academic field Tito has obtained a Master’s degree on police studies from Exeter University in the UK in 1993 and a PhD in strategic studies from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2013.

 Jokowi’s decision to nominate Tito as the sole candidate for the post cannot be seen as unrelated to the President’s bitter experience when he nominated Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan for the post last year.

In January 2015, Jokowi nominated Budi as National Police chief with the House’s approval. But before the President was able to inaugurate him, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named Budi a graft suspect.

Budi filed a pretrial motion to challenge the KPK’s decision and won, with the court annulling his suspect status. However, the case triggered a war between the two institutions, with the police then naming several KPK commissioners and a KPK investigator suspects in criminal cases.

The investigations into the KPK officials were later suspended, while Budi was installed as National Police deputy chief in April last year.

Earlier, Budi had been tipped as a potential candidate for the National Police chief post, with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Golkar Party factions, the two largest factions in the House, publicly expressing their support for Budi. Budi seemed to be the most likely candidate until House of Representatives Speaker Ade Komaruddin revealed on Wednesday the official letter in which President Jokowi had nominated Tito.

Budi is known as a close associate of Jokowi’s patron, former president and PDI-P chairperson Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Another likely factor behind Jokowi’s choice of Tito is their apparent close relationship, at least ever since the 2014 presidential election. Tito was chief of the Papua Police, which supervised both Papua and West Papua provinces — where Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla won big compared to their rival Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa — in the 2014 election. The victory, however, had no direct correlation to the close relations between Jokowi and Tito.

Last but not least, Jokowi’s choice of Tito is perhaps also in aid of the President’s long-term political goals. Jokowi is widely expected to seek reelection in 2019, when Tito, now 51, is likely to still be police chief. While clear support from the National Police, as represented by its chief, is significant for Jokowi’s reelection bid, having a close and reliable friend as National Police chief would be an asset as well as a boost for the incumbent president to contest the 2019 political event.

All in all, the choice of Tito is apparently a clear signal that Jokowi has managed to eventually show leadership in state affairs, cutting his umbilical cord with Megawati, who once called him a mere “party worker”.
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