TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Is VP Gibran’s complaint desk initiative a panacea?
By establishing this new channel, the Vice President risks turning his office, designed to address national concerns, into a bureaucracy focused on local problems.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Listening ear: An employee of Lapor Mas Wapres (Report to Brother Vice President) attends to a member of the public on Nov. 11, 2024, the day Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka launched the new complaints center at his offices in Central Jakarta. (Antara/Fauzan)
V
ice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka has launched the Lapor Mas Wapres (Report to the Vice President) program for the public. The complaint desk is accessible to the public from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday to Friday. People can also file their complaints online, whether through the instant messaging application WhatsApp or a website.
Gibran’s initiative is based on his experience as the mayor of Surakarta in Central Java, from 2021 to 2024, during which he had set up a complaint desk in his office. His father, former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo also opened a similar desk when he served as the Jakarta governor from 2012 to 2014.
Gibran’s initiative has sparked controversy. The program, designed to bring public complaints directly to the Vice President’s office, promises a fresh approach to connecting citizens with solutions. While the concept may seem promising, upon closer examination, it appears to create unnecessary overlap with existing systems and potentially turn the Vice President into an all-purpose problem solver.
Rather than streamlining government responsiveness, the initiative may merely centralize influence while sidelining local governance structures. Is this a true step forward, or simply another way for the Vice President to flex his authority in a domain that should remain decentralized?
One has to wonder: How many Indonesians truly face issues that require the Vice President’s direct intervention? By establishing this new channel, the Vice President risks turning his office, designed to address national concerns, into a bureaucracy focused on local problems.
This raises doubts about whether this is an effective use of his position or an overreach into the responsibilities of local leaders. Such a move could be seen as a populist strategy.
As Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser (2017) explain, populist politics is essentially a struggle between "the pure people" and "the corrupt elite" with populist leaders positioning themselves as defenders of popular sovereignty.
