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View all search resultsPlanned new capital Nusantara risks 'white elephant' status
The legacy project of former president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is battling a slashed budget, slowed construction and a deficit of interest from a new leader focused on social mega-projects.
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This picture taken on August 14, 2025 shows civil servants working in Ibu Kota Nusantara (IKN), the planned new capital in East Kalimantan. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
A
year after it was inaugurated, Indonesia's would-be new capital Nusantara attracts tourists and construction workers, but most of its architecturally arresting presidential palace and freshly built avenues sit silent.
The legacy project of former president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is battling a slashed budget, slowed construction and a deficit of interest from a new leader focused on social mega-projects.
That has raised questions about whether the city, carved out of the jungle to replace crowded and rapidly sinking Jakarta, will ever see its promised potential.
"The political will on IKN right now feels muted," said Dedi Dinarto, senior associate at public policy advisory firm Global Counsel, referring to the new capital's official name: Ibu Kota Nusantara.
President Prabowo Subianto "is clearly putting his chips on welfare instead".
Just over 1,000 city authority employees live in Nusantara, along with a few hundred more ministry workers and service and medical employees.
That's far short of Jakarta's 12 million residents, and the new city's goal of two million inhabitants by 2045.
