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Remission: The trouble with Jokowi’s mercy

Rio Helmi (The Jakarta Post)

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Jakarta

Thu, February 7, 2019 Published on Feb. 7, 2019 Published on 2019-02-07T08:46:01+07:00

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (JP/Marguerite Afra Sapiie)

I

n the final months of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s first term in office there have been many baseless, politically motivated accusations leveled at him and his administration by the opposition and their social media allies.

However, in the run-up to the elections in April, he has made compromising blunders; at best naïve errors in judgment. The most explosive of these have to do with presidential pardons and reductions of sentences related to at least two prominent and brutal cases.

On Jan. 18 the President declared he would pardon or reduce Jamaah Islamiyah leader Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s sentence to the extent that he would be released very shortly. His legal adviser was former justice minister under then president Megawati Soekarnoputri, Yusril Ihza Mahendra. Yusril, a supporter of the Jakarta Charter, which back in the founding days of the republic originally called for sharia law for Indonesia, allegedly advised Jokowi that this would be proof that the President was not hostile to devout Muslims.

This exercise backfired. An outcry spread like wildfire throughout the country and beyond, and especially in Bali where terrorist bombings killed hundreds of innocent people. There were those stalwarts who, citing various scenarios, argued that Jokowi “had a plan”.