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.

The 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election will certainly be remembered for taking the narrative of identity politics to a new level. However, as I have written somewhere else, the gubernatorial elections in 2018 suggested another trend that could serve as a counter balance. The elected governors of West Java, Central Java, East Java and South Sulawesi (the largest provinces where more than 60 percent of the Indonesian population lives) are technocrats. They are known more as technocrats than politicians, which means voters are looking for public service delivery-oriented types of 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.

Today’s and tomorrow’s challenges in Indonesia are urban in nature: climate change, floods and other natural and man-made disasters, delivering good education and health services and developing transportation infrastructure and technology, to name a few, all of which require technocratic solutions. Governors, mayors and regents are our first line of defense as they deal directly with all these urban-like problems in their respective areas on a day-to-day basis, beyond the question of religion and ethnicity, as they affect all walks of life.

As a matter of fact, President Jokowi was the first of this kind of new urban leader in Indonesia, starting as mayor of Surakarta in 2005.

Looking at it from a helicopter view, the reelection of Jokowi in 2019 is significant in that it suggests that Indonesia is indeed on the right track for democratization, with decentralization as its main feature since beginning in 1999.

The governors, mayors and regents, therefore, have political and economic incentives to work closely with President Jokowi in his second term. They need access to development projects from the central government so they will have development achievements in their respective regions to display prior to the 2024 elections.

On the other hand, President Jokowi is naturally seeking to leave a good legacy when he ends his second term in 2024. It will not come as a surprise if he aims for successful development to be his main legacy. For sure this will require alliances with regional leaders.

In fact, Jokowi might need to rely on these regional leaders to pursue his development agenda given, in my opinion, he will only have three years at the most to effectively govern. In the third year of his second term he will become a lame duck president as all political players will start to devote their energies to the 2024 election.

In hindsight, the first 20 years of democratization and decentralization have been quite successful, although challenges remain. This should not be interrupted by the return of undemocratic forces. Jokowi’s second term will, therefore, be as important as his first in ensuring that Indonesia stays on the democratic path.

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The writer is executive director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta.

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