T

he state of the nation address has traditionally served as a pulpit from which a sitting president touts his or her achievements. During his speech on Thursday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo did exactly that, while adding a healthy dose of nationalism. It was in a nutshell, the best summation of Jokowi’s populist-nationalist agenda.

The President began by stressing that the state of the nation was strong and that he had done a lot to make it stronger in the past four years since he took office in 2014.

In the speech, Jokowi claimed that he had done a lot to develop infrastructure and expand social welfare programs that managed to free millions from poverty. As a result, the country now has more toll roads, airports and seaports than ever before while at the same time the number of people living in poverty was at its lowest level in the country’s history.

Jokowi also stressed that for the first time in the country’s history, income disparity, as measured by the Gini ratio, is at its lowest level. As for the failure to achieve the 7 percent growth target, the President blamed volatility in the global economy.

But Jokowi could always hope that people would settle for less given that he has secured the ultimate prize in his economic nationalism agenda. In the speech, he framed the government’s takeover of Freeport,
Mahakam, Rokan and Sanga-Sanga oil and gas blocks as a move to maintain sovereignty of the country’s natural resources, the same way blowing up foreign-owned fishing vessels could help local fisherman get the most of the country’s marine resources.

And as if responding to criticism that he has not achieved much on the issue of human rights and corruption eradication, the President defended his record by saying that he had issued two regulations; one pertaining to the inclusion of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in the national strategy for graft prevention and another on guidelines for expediting the resolution of past human rights abuses.

These problems, like all problems in the country, have been described by Jokowi early in his speech as ones that need a long-term solution and not stop-gap measures rolled out in one or two years.

This statement sounds like a reasonable assessment of a situation. But coming from a President who is fighting an election next year, it sure sounds like a campaign pledge.