How do you oversee one of the world’s worst outbreaks of COVID-19, ram through unpopular economic reforms during a recession and end up retaining the sort of approval ratings most democratic leaders would walk across coals for?

Ask Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo who, according to most rules of political gravity, ought to have had a tough 2020. Instead, what stood out in Indonesia’s pandemic year was the resilience of the political status quo amid an endless first wave of COVID-19.