Perhaps it is a 10-kilometer run for the vice presidential seat for Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in 2019, a half-marathon for Ahok and his rival Anies Baswedan toward the 2024 presidential election or a marathon for Ahok, Anies and Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono going into the 2029 presidential election.

A number of political scientists and analysts have lauded the recent trend of promoting regional leaders, not party elites or former generals, in the presidential election. The most phenomenal example is of course President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who forged his leadership over years of hard work and “innovations” during his stints as Surakarta mayor and later Jakarta governor.

During the 2014 presidential election campaigns, many people, including myself, dismissed the argument that Jokowi should not bid for the presidency but complete his full term as Jakarta governor as promised. Such a thesis was perceived solely as a stick with which to beat Jokowi by his rival Prabowo Subianto’s camp.

But after two years of disillusionment of Jokowi’s promises about “improving Jakarta easier done from the Palace”, I now can see a solid point behind the anti-Jokowi group’s argument. The Jakarta election served as a stepping stone for bigger ambitions.

Jokowi’s social media team would of course frame his programs, quick fixes and mega projects as

“innovations”, “breakthroughs” or “real changes”. In this day and age, buzzers can twist evictions into “humane relocations” and many people who hurled expletives at former Jakarta governor Sutiyoso for his eviction spree in 2003-2004 will convince themselves that Ahok’s evictions are somehow different.

For a stepping-stone city, there will be no laying of groundwork for sustainable programs that need extra effort, patience and a long-term vision. Laying groundwork for sustainable programs does not look good on social media, while quick fixes provide Instagrammable pictures and are easier to be made into memes.

A perfect example is Jakarta’s orange troops whose task is to collect trash. People who have been working on sustainable waste management know that the best way to manage waste is to reduce, reuse and recycle (3R), which has been made mandatory through a 2013 bylaw. Sadly, it is not suitable for posting on Instagram and the bylaw has forced bureaucrats to work hard without any room to collect money.

And God forbid the next governor would harvest what his predecessor has sown.

Jakarta gets a 14,000-strong orange army only. They neither encourage 3R nor punish litterers. They instead serve litterers, who are taxpayers.

But, oh, Jakartans love this program because you have to admit that rivers dissecting the city of Jakarta are free of solid waste. Of course not 100 percent, but Jakartans are so in love with Jokowi and Ahok that they now set a very low benchmark for their leaders’ performance. They are already happy and gushing with admiration for a 50 percent achievement.

Picking up trash is a wildly popular program, a perfect program to woo voters for Ahok. If you dare call it mere window-dressing, you will be left figuratively black and blue from cyberbullying. It really happened to my friend.

It is not only Ahok who loves quick fixes. Criticism from a very small circle of Bandung, West Java, residents has also surfaced. A friend in Bandung says that if you dare say that Mayor Ridwan Kamil is busy building parks and has done nothing else in front of his rabid, young fans, you will receive a verbal thrashing.

Another stepping-stone is Bogor, also in West Java. I don’t know much about Bogor, but I believe Mayor Bima Arya has not fulfilled his promise to solve the problems of the embattled Yasmin church and has personally led the blocking of Shiite rituals in the city. Clearly, he is aiming for the gubernatorial seat in West Java, where conservative Muslims dominate the voter make-up.

There is nothing wrong with gunning for the presidency. It is a noble ambition, in fact.

But since 2014, political consultants have relied on social media to shape public opinion by using materials that nurture shallow and emotional voters. They exploit the emotive side and muffle skeptics and critics by labeling them as haters.

There has been a rise in post-fact politics globally, including in Indonesia. It has succeeded in the UK and the US.

Post-fact politics can be defined as a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points, the factual rebuttals of which are ignored.

In Jakarta, post-fact politics exploits Jakartans’ feeling about unenforced law (evictions are deemed as enforcement of the law), a dirty city (instead of enforcing the bylaw, litterers are indulged by orange troops), and a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy (Ahok has lashed out at bureaucrats and randomly fired them).

It would hardly be unsurprising if the Agus and Anies camps followed in Ahok’s footsteps. If either Agus or Anies beat Ahok, they would maintain the old practice of focusing more on quick fixes because this has been proven to be successful. They are nowhere near the finish line and will need as much material as possible to feed the social media armies that will bring them to the Palace.

Without any breakthrough, Indonesia should brace for a future leader who is forged not by visionary, sustainable programs but more by the noise of social media, at the expense of stepping-stone cities.

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