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Will Jokowi’s millennial touch bear fruit?
“Mas Herman, if I wanted to change my hairstyle to what kids these days are wearing, what would it be?” President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo asks his regular barber in his latest vlog, uploaded on Sunday
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“Mas Herman, if I wanted to change my hairstyle to what kids these days are wearing, what would it be?” President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo asks his regular barber in his latest vlog, uploaded on Sunday.
“You could go with an undercut,” Herman, who has regularly tended the President’s hair since he was the governor of Jakarta, replies. “It’s a style in which the hair on each side of the head is shorter, with the top part slicked back.”
From haircuts to sneakers, since his ascendancy to the national political stage, Jokowi has taken pains to present himself as being in tune with the younger millennial generation, but will his apparent closeness to young people translate into real policies that help them?
During the recent presidential election campaign, for example, Jokowi made a point of visiting young entrepreneurs and promoted a preemployment card for young job seekers as one of his main campaign promises.
Jokowi also reached out to the younger crowd in more informal ways, such as meeting with popular YouTuber Atta Halilintar at the Bogor Palace in West Java a month before election day while donning matching hoodies.
Even after he officially secured his second term, the former Jakarta governor has maintained this persona, most recently meeting with rapper Rich Brian and calling him a “young man from Indonesia who does [us] proud”.
Jokowi has also said he is open to naming a number of young people to his next Cabinet.
“Ministers aged 20 to 25 years old, why not? But they must understand management and be able to implement [ministerial] programs,” Jokowi said recently.
Muhammad Pradana Indraputra, a 27-year-old who has volunteered for Jokowi since his first presidential campaign in 2014, said that Jokowi’s casual, youthful style and his apparent independence from political party oligarchs was what first drew him to support him.
Pradana has since founded an organization called KitaSatu (We are One) for millennial Jokowi volunteers and was even enlisted by Jokowi’s presidential campaign team to be a “millennial spokesperson”.
“People can be cynical and accuse Jokowi of just pandering to young people, but the truth is that style and appearances can matter,” he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday, citing Jokowi’s use of locally made jackets and sneakers as examples. “If the President uses a product, it suddenly becomes popular and everyone wants to buy it.”
He also mentioned Jokowi’s impromptu visit to a local coffee chain, Tuku, in 2017 as proof of the President’s positive influence on young people.
“After he visited Tuku, the local coffee shop industry started to boom, although of course his visit wasn’t the only factor,” he said.
University of Indonesia (UI) sociologist Imam Prasodjo said that Jokowi’s apparent focus on millennials showed his awareness of the generation’s key role in the country’s future.
According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), in 2019 there are about 65.9 million Indonesians aged 20 to 34 years old, making up nearly a quarter of the country’s total population of 266 million.
“These young people are the first digital natives and they understand online networks and the potential for jobs and industries in the digital world,” Imam told the Post.
He added, however, that Jokowi should not stop at merely symbolic gestures but commit to concrete policies that would help the younger generation compete in the modern world.
“Jokowi has to really support creative young people and facilitate them to help develop solutions on how to compete in the digital landscape, given that 59 percent of our population only have a primary or secondary school education,” he said. “Because millennials aren’t only made up of educated, middle-upper class people. There are millennials in the villages as well.”
He said that creating centers of innovation at the regency level would be one way to help young people use digital networks productively, “not just as entertainment”.
Imam added that appointing millennials to Cabinet positions was not necessarily the best way to empower the generation.
“Without experience in navigating politics and bureaucracy, these young people may falter and it may appear as a failed experiment,” he said. “What’s more important is to appoint people who understand and are committed to unlocking the potential of the millennial generation.”
