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Analysis: New capital Nusantara put to popular test
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A design illustration of Indonesia's future State Palace in East Kalimantan.
( AFP/Handout)
M
oving the capital city from Jakarta to Nusantara in East Kalimantan may seem like a done deal, but now the costly project, conservatively put at about US$35 billion, is being put to the popular test for the first time.
At least one political party has picked up the issue in its election campaign, which kicked off on Oct. 28, saying that the project, a signature of the incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, should be shelved by the next elected president and government.
The project has already been assured political legitimacy through the 2022 law on the Nusantara Capital (IKN) passed by the House of Representatives. Some construction has started on the once forested land, entirely funded from the government’s budget. Many foreign and domestic private investors have pledged to participate, but none have spent any money. They are waiting for the election results, and for the next government to decide on the future of the new capital.
It has never been clear however, whether the new capital city project has popular legitimacy. That the project got the House endorsement was more a reflection of the power that Jokowi had over the political parties that are part of his coalition government. The Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) was the lone party out of nine in the House that did not endorse the bill when it was put to a vote in January 2022. In October this year, the project was put to another vote in the House for the bill amending some articles of the IKN Law. Again, the PKS was the odd man out in rejecting the proposal.
The PKS is now taking the Nusantara project before the people for a popularity test, promising that if it won the election, it would send the IKN Law back to the House to be repealed. The PKS came sixth in the 2019 legislative election, polling 8.21 percent of the total national votes. Now it is hoping to capture the silent voices that had privately rejected moving the capital to increase its share of the votes.
The PKS is in a coalition with the NasDem Party and the Nation Awakening Party (PKB) in nominating former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan for president, who is pairing with PKB chairman Muhaimin Iskandar as running mate. The presidential and legislative elections will be simultaneously held on Feb. 14, so the fate of the parties and candidates are somehow bound together.
Anies has been careful not to pick up the theme in his election campaign, saying that if elected as president, he would abide by the law, but he did not rule out the possibility of bringing the project to the House for revision. The PKB and NasDem, which in 2019 came fourth and fifth respectively, have refrained from taking up the issue in their election campaigns since they voted for the IKN bill both times, when it was endorsed and when it was amended.
