Experts and scholars gathered in a forum to assess the development of Indonesia's democracy have concluded that, over the past five years, which includes the first term of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo’s administration, the country's democracy has deteriorated at an alarming rate thanks to an "elite-led assault on democratic institution." The experts, who study Indonesian politics and hail from overseas research centers and universities, said that, although Indonesia deserved praise for its practice of liberal democracy, registering a quality higher than that of India and only lagging behind countries in Northeast Asia, like Japan and South Korea, it had stagnated in recent years and in fact had begun to regress due to efforts taken by members of the political elite to sabotage democratic institutions. Scholars Eve Warburton of the Asia Research I...