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Jokowi: Victorious, upbeat, compromised
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Indonesia's presidential candidate for the upcoming general election Joko Widodo takes pictures with his supporters during his first campaign rally at a stadium in Serang, Banten province, Indonesia, March 24, 2019 (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
W
hen Aung San Suu Kyi won a seat in parliament — after decades of house arrest and a consistently undermined political career — the world believed that democracy and human rights in Myanmar were going to be ushered in.
Now, at her height of power, the Rohingya crisis remains unsettling and unfinished. Granted, there was not much legroom for her even when becoming state counsellor of Myanmar as she still had to make concessions to the military in the form of Cabinet positions (mandated by the country’s own constitution) and had to balance her policy stances with a majority Buddhist electorate.
Looking at the West, we can see that United States President Donald Trump, who previously promised that he would “drain the swamp”, has found himself aligning with Washington’s elite such as top Republican donor (who would later be tapped as education secretary) Betsy Devos. This brings us to present day Indonesia, where Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is according to quick counts poised to gain a second term.
However, is this the same Jokowi who promised hope, development and a break from political cronyism in 2014?
Many people might not retain a clear image of a victorious Jokowi in 2014. Donning a red checkered long sleeved shirt, and squeezed between the mother-daughter duo comprising former president Megawati Soekarnoputri and Puan Maharani, he appeared timid in a way, sitting among a kingmaker and her successor.
Back then, Jokowi, with no position within his political party, would be called and humiliated with many nicknames — the most memorable being stamped as just a “political cadre”, a patronizing word for a man who holds the highest authority in a land of 250 million people. With a minority in the House of Representatives at the beginning of his presidency and an experienced vice president at the helm, questions surfaced on whether he could make use of the power that was mandated to him. Even I, at one point, believed that a lame duck presidency was a possibility.
However, as the years wore on Jokowi seems to have evolved into a masterful chess player. Even though he had no political party to command, no personal bank account fit for a tycoon and minimal experience in dealing with the international community, slowly — step by step — we saw that Jokowi was able to push away opposition and bring new allies into the fold. Yet at what cost?
