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Could chocolate be Jokowi’s ‘sweetest’ legacy of all?
What both Jokowi and Prabowo clearly recognize is that Indonesia’s greatest asset is a youthful population, characterized by creative energy and resilience.
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Bounteous beans: A farmer dries cacao beans on Jan. 18, 2022, in his backyard in Toabo village, Mamuju regency, West Sulawesi. The province is among the country’s main cacao producers. (Antara/Akbar Tado)
T
he term “Jokowi legacy” is used to refer to the continuation of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s policies and plans, and is often evoked but also widely debated. So how, in practical terms, can it best be understood?
Certainly, the Jokowi legacy is important, because promising to continue it was a critical to Prabowo Subianto’s electoral victory in the February 2024 presidential election.
Is the Jokowi legacy a popular, stable government? Or is it more about economic growth? In 2023, the Indonesian economy grew by more than 5 percent. Accordingly, is the Jokowi legacy also focused on infrastructure development and greater foreign investment, the reduction of bureaucratic red tape and the creation of more jobs with a corresponding improvement in general living standards? Or is it all these things and more?
Indonesia’s soon to be eighth president, Prabowo, has promised to “make life better for all Indonesians”, with a pragmatic emphasis on improving access to health and education. But, like his predecessor, he also wants to attract the investment necessary to transform the country into an industrial powerhouse by the time of the celebration of 100 years of independence in 2045. Such an aspirational idea, known as the Golden Indonesia 2045 vision, was established by President Jokowi. It sets the goal for Indonesia to become one of the five top manufacturing economies in the world, after China, the United States, India and Japan, overtaking Brazil, Germany and the United Kingdom by 2045.
However, what both Jokowi and Prabowo clearly recognize is that Indonesia’s greatest asset is a youthful population, characterized by creative energy and resilience. For this reason, nowhere can the Jokowi legacy be better understood than on the island of Bali.
However, this is not directly related to tourism, as one might initially expect. Rather, it is a value-added and very sophisticated export-oriented manufacturing process, namely chocolate production.
Chocolate consumption around the world is booming. Indonesia is the third largest producer of cacao after Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, with the US, Malaysia and Singapore major importers of raw Indonesian cacao. The cacao bean is the dried and fermented seed of the cacao tree from which chocolate is produced. It is an industry that directly benefits local producers and communities with over 90 percent of cacao grown by small scale farmers.
