Whether the Constitution will be amended by the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) to allow Jokowi to extend his two five-year terms, or the Constitution remains unchanged and he proves his repeated promise to step down in October 2024, there are few reasons to suggest that Jokowi will become a lame-duck leader as often happens in democratic countries.

Unless he is embroiled in scandals that severely damage his credibility, Jokowi will act not only as a kingmaker during the 2024 presidential election, but will be the king himself.

Jokowi does not have any political party, but trust me, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) will need him more than the other way around. In 2014, the party’s chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri firmly told him that he was just a party worker despite his ascendancy to presidency. But 10 years later, in 2024, maybe the PDI-P will be like a craftsman working for the former furniture businessman.

You may suspect I am a Jokowi’s trumpeter who plays beautiful songs to glorify him or make him a cult personality.

I have several times written my opposition to the idea of extending the presidential term by any means, including constitutional amendment. We should not repeat the era of dictatorship the country endured in the past under Sukarno and Soeharto.

Indonesia held its first democratic elections in 1999 and amended the 1945 Constitution four times until 2002 to ensure that the country moved toward a full-fledged democracy.