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View all search results‘Man of Contradictions’ spotlights Jokowi’s struggle to remake Indonesia
Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s victory in the 2014 presidential election understandably excited many Indonesians.
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J
oko “Jokowi” Widodo” was the first leader not from the country’s elite or military and was widely seen as a man of the people and reformer who pledged to strengthen democracy, spur faster and more equitable economic growth and put human rights on his agenda.
Unsurprisingly, that has proven too tall an order. These days, nearly one year into his second five-year term, not everyone is thrilled with Jokowi, who has had better years than this one.
COVID-19 has posed an enormous challenge for Indonesia, and his leadership in combatting it – particularly his withholding news of Indonesia’s first cases to prevent panic – has been criticized by many. Still, Jokowi’s standing with ordinary Indonesians doesn’t appear to be impacted.
Jokowi’s story, personality and record as president are the subject of a new book by Ben Bland, the Financial Times correspondent in Indonesia when the furniture-shop owner was elected Jakarta governor in 2012 and president just two years later.
Bland’s 146-page book is titled Man of Contradictions: Joko Widodo and the struggle to remake Indonesia. It tracks Jokowi on his stunning journey from a furniture business in the Central Java town of Surakarta to Merdeka Palace in nine years.
Bland, now at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, has met or interviewed Jokowi more than a dozen times, and has nice color and detail on the leader that Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s former prime minister, called “a cool cat in every respect”.
