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high-level Indonesian delegation is very hard at work at the United Nations headquarters in New York City this week, tackling a mountain of meetings on a large array of global concerns.

However, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will be absent from the meetings of the global superbody that will discuss diverse issues from the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar to climate change.

The 72nd UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) high-level week kicked off to a busy start on Monday, with Vice President Jusuf Kalla and Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi spearheading all of Indonesia’s diplomatic forays.

This year marks the third consecutive year that Jokowi has skipped the UNGA, sending Kalla in his stead to represent Indonesia at the global forum. Several state officials have been approached for the President’s reason, but none were willing to comment.

“Surely after three consecutive no-shows, the message from the palace is quite clear: For big multilateral forums with lots of speeches and no immediate concrete results, [the President] prefers to be represented by [the Vice President],” said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an international relations expert who used to be part of Kalla’s entourage. “He is clearly not personally interested in global and other large multilateral forums such as UNGA, OIC [Organization for Islamic Cooperation] and NAM [Non-Alignment Movement]. In any case, the VP is well-regarded enough and equally able to represent Indonesia in these wider fora.”

Jokowi’s first few years in office have seen the government focus primarily on domestic infrastructure development and less on international engagements, which had been a prominent marker of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presidency.

While the former Jakarta governor had initially shown a disinterest in geopolitics following the departure of his chief foreign affairs advisor Rizal Sukma to London to become ambassador to the United Kingdom, Retno has slowly gained Jokowi’s trust as his main foreign policy advisor, while still leaving high-level global engagements to veteran statesman Kalla.

“Still, no matter how able the VP, he is not the President. If Indonesia wishes to gain the necessary support in its bid for the 2019 to 2020 [UNSC spot] the President should demonstrate clearly that he also thinks the UN is important,” Dewi argued.

During a recent conversation with The Jakarta Post in Singapore, Minister Retno was visibly tense when she insisted that the President’s absence from the UNGA “won’t have any effects” on Indonesia’s objectives.

The Indonesian delegation, which also includes Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani, is in every meeting seeking to further the country’s campaign to win a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC) in 2019 and 2020.

Jakarta needs a minimum of 129 supporters by July 2018 in order for the country to qualify for the UNSC seat.

During the first day of high-level UN meetings on Monday, Retno engaged several of her foreign counterparts in bilateral meetings, including from Samoa, Croatia, Namibia, Liechtenstein and Ghana.

On Tuesday, Kalla has a number of speaking engagements in New York, including at the opening session of the UNGA general debate that follows a welcoming reception by the UN secretary-general and will close with a state luncheon.