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Economy first: Jokowi sticks to his agenda 7 years into presidency
His handling of the pandemic is the most recent indication that the President places the economy over everything else, yet GDP growth has never met the target.
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‘Silakan’: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo presents the draft of the 2021 state budget to House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani during a plenary session on Aug. 14. (Antara/Akbar Nugroho Gumay)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has consistently prioritized economic development in his seven years of leadership, but Indonesia’s economic growth has remained below target.
COVID-19 policies are the latest example of how the Jokowi administration places the economy above other policy goals – in this case, over public health. During the early days of the pandemic, the government refused to heed scientific advice to impose a lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.
The government pointed to the severe economic repercussions of a lockdown and the huge stimulus spending that would be needed to keep people and businesses afloat. Instead of a lockdown, the government enforced a variety of activity curbs, including the latest emergency social restrictions (PPKMD) in a tiered system adapted to the regional threat level.
Comparatively loose curbs allowed Indonesia to record a smaller economic contraction than other countries at 2.07 percent in 2020, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data show. The government also booked a fiscal deficit smaller than other governments at 6.1 percent of GDP last year, Finance Ministry data show.
Read also: Indonesia enters first recession since 1998 on 3.49% Q3 contraction
The Jokowi administration’s refusal to lock down the country however, came at a cost. When the Delta variant drove the second wave of the pandemic, the number of daily confirmed deaths peaked at 2,069 on July 27.
Mohammad Faisal, executive director of the Center for Reform on Economics (CORE) Indonesia, said that policy decision, which made it hard to bring the pandemic under control, had dragged out the economic recovery.
