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Jokowi's second term: Alliance with civilian regional leaders
We may describe this phenomenon as the rise of urban leadership in Indonesia, which will replace the older generation of leaders who opted for big narratives on religion, nationalism and what not.
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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (middle) rides a motorbike, along with West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil (second left) and members of a biker community during a tour across Bandung, West Java to advocate national unity. (Antara/Wahyu Putro)
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he General Elections Commission (KPU) has announced that based on its manual counting Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Ma’ruf Amin collected more votes than their sole opposition Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno. Pending the Constitutional Court’s decision on an appeal filed by Prabowo’s side, all other things being equal, the incumbent President Jokowi will enter his second term in October this year.
Jokowi’s reelection is significant for at least two reasons.
First, Jokowi continues the precedent set by his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of serving 10 years, as is constitutionally allowable. Ten years will enable any Indonesian president to pursue his or her development agendas. In addition, a two-term presidency provides some sense of continuity and stability that will help the country move forward and win international confidence.
Second, which is the focus of this article, Jokowi is now the first civilian president in Indonesia to be elected twice in a democratic setting. Sukarno, the founding president of the republic, for sure was a civilian. No one can match his contribution to the country, yet he was a larger-than-life civilian who never competed in an election. Another civilian, President BJ Habibie, succeeded Soeharto in 1998, as required by our Constitution but decided not to run in the first democratic election in 1999 that he helped organize, knowing full-well that he did not stand a chance of winning.
President Abdurahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, who was a towering civil society figure in his time, became president after the 1999 election, regardless of the fact that some political maneuvering denied the winner of the 1999 election, Megawati Soekarnoputri, the presidency. The very same politicians who were behind the maneuvering forced Gus Dur to resign in 2001 and installed Megawati to complete the remaining years of the presidency. However, Megawati lost the presidency in the first one-man-one-vote election to Yudhoyono in 2004. In short, Jokowi’s reelection is very important in the institutionalization of Indonesia’s civilian democracy.
The riots in some concentrated places in Jakarta following the KPU’s announcement of the election result last week were temporary in nature. Evidence shows that in one way or another, the unrest had been less than organic but rather was orchestrated. The incumbent President has sent a strong signal that the nation would not succumb to these kinds of irresponsible acts.
The identity politics narratives that have been exploited throughout the political years from 2017 to 2019 only highlight the fact that the issue regarding the relationship between the state and religion will remain a serious challenge for the country for some years to come.
