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View all search resultsJokowi’s presidency ushered in ‘authoritarian revival’
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Arianto Patunru, policy engagement coordinator of the ANU Indonesia Project and a fellow at the ANU Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, presents “The Jokowi Presidency” to Yose Rizal Damuri, executive director of the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), during the book’s launch at the CSIS Auditorium, Jakarta, on Aug. 13, 2025. (Courtesy of/CSIS)
J
oko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ascent to the presidency in 2014 stirred hopes for change in Indonesia, but a decade later, he departed leaving what experts have described as modest economic progress accompanied by the weakening of Indonesia’s democratic guardrails.
A former furniture maker who grew up in a run-down riverside area in Surakarta, Central Java, Jokowi came to power as a political outsider with limited connections to the elites, a refreshing prospect in a landscape dominated by oligarchs, New Order-era holdovers and corrupt politicians.
But when he stepped down last year, he left behind a fragile economy and a political system showing signs of the New Order’s old playbook of co-optation and repression, experts said on Wednesday during the launch of “The Jokowi Presidency: Indonesia’s Decade of Authoritarian Revival”.
The book, introduced in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the ANU Indonesia Project, assembles leading scholars from a wide range of fields, including foreign policy, security, economics, politics, law and human rights. It examines Jokowi’s political evolution and its impact on Indonesia.
At the event, hosted by the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), ANU researcher and coeditor Sana Jaffrey described Jokowi as “a disruptive president” whose ambitious developmental agenda came at a steep democratic cost.
“What we saw was coercion of critics and allies, the centralization of state power reminiscent of Soeharto’s [New Order] era and the systematic dismantling of accountability mechanisms, first to serve Jokowi’s economic vision and ultimately for the pursuit of personal power,” Jaffrey said.
Read also: House Speaker Puan takes jab at Jokowi as she laments declining democracy
