He rose on a platform of hope and change. He leaves with his nation’s democracy diminished

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Jakarta: Joko Widodo, the softly spoken furniture maker of modest origins and imperious appetites, is handing over the world’s third-largest democracy to his chosen successor, Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander with a dubious past and a penchant for cats.

The inauguration of Prabowo on Sunday will mark only the second time there has been a transition of power from one directly elected president to another since Indonesia’s declaration of independence almost 80 years ago.

Joko Widodo speaking at a ground-breaking ceremony for a new hotel.Credit: Bloomberg

It speaks to Indonesia’s tortuous path to democracy from the decades-long reigns of national father Sukarno and his usurper, Suharto. After the latter finally went down amid the Asian financial crisis and nascent Reformasi movement, rules were put in place to limit a president’s tenure to two terms. Jokowi, as a Widodo is commonly known, has maxed out – on paper, at least. In the habit of South-East Asian leaders, Widodo has engineered the ascent of his son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, into high office. Gibran, who despised politics as a younger man, will serve under Prabowo as vice president.

Widodo came to power in 2014 on a tide of Obama-esque hope and change, a reflection of the Indonesian everyman. The son of middle-class toilers, he found success in the family trade and parlayed his esteem into politics, first as the mayor of Solo from 2005. It was in this post that he honed his famous style of blusukan: the art of showing up and listening.

His quiet, popular and man-of-action style caught the eyes of political elites Megawati Sukarnoputri and Prabowo, who felt they could use his rising star to “launder their sullied reputations” before the 2014 national elections, according to Ben Bland in a 2020 biography of Jokowi, Man of Contradictions.

The pair put him forward as a candidate in the 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial election, which he won. A couple of years later, he would win the presidency, too. “As it happened,” Bland wrote, “they proved too successful at talent spotting, and Jokowi would pip them at the post, showing that he could hold his own in the manipulative games played by the nation’s top politicians.”

Widodo beat Prabowo in 2014 and then again in 2019, casting himself as the attentive and humble man of the people through slick image management, media allies and his genuine achievements. He handed out benefits to ordinary folks and cronies alike. He built roads and bridges, and reduced rates of poverty and childhood malnutrition.

Economic growth hummed along at a strong 5 per cent through most of the Widodo decade (bar the COVID years). Importantly, as Australian National University Indonesia specialist Marcus Mietzner told me, he kept inflation under control.

Relations with Australia were generally good, notwithstanding the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran early in his tenure. In August, Australia and Indonesia signed what Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles called “the most significant defence agreement in the history of our two countries”.

But Widodo never really cared much for foreign affairs. He “slightly increased” Indonesia’s global heft, Mietzner says, but it “remains a benign middle power with low military capacity”.

Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka claiming victory on the night of February 14.Credit: AP

The president didn’t even turn up to this month’s ASEAN conference in Laos, sending geriatric deputy Ma’ruf Amin to represent the bloc’s most populous member instead. Widodo apparently had “official matters” to attend to before the imminent presidential handover. These included reopening the national museum in Jakarta, celebrating the 79th birthday of the Mines and Energy Department, and inaugurating two hospitals in his empty, under-construction new capital city in the malarial jungles of Borneo.

Widodo has few opportunities left to bed down his legacy. No point being overseas.

He remains wildly popular, polling at about 75 per cent support. Signs by the roads in Jakarta giving thanks – “Terima Kasih Jokowi (2014-2024)” – were put up by ProJo, a supporter group said to have about 7 million volunteers. Had he been allowed to run in the February election – and his camp did look at fiddling with such rules – he probably would have won again.

But critics lament what they say is an authoritarian streak hiding behind the languid smile. At the same time as building hard infrastructure, for which he is loved, he hobbled or ran roughshod over democratic institutions, including the nation’s anti-corruption body and courts, for which he is loathed.

“The best one can say about Jokowi’s impact on democracy is that it survived under his rule,” Mietzner says. “This is not a small matter, given Indonesia’s record. But it is equally clear that Jokowi leaves behind a democracy that is much diminished.”

His lasting political capital is tied to his rise from outside the elite, yet a second-term priority has been entrenching a family dynasty, with him as the patriarch, at the head of Indonesia’s ruling class table.

Illogically, or so it seems at first, this is where Prabowo comes in. Despite their enmity over two campaigns, Widodo turned his back on his own party and backed Prabowo to succeed him as president.

The rewarming of the twice-defeated and politically spent Prabowo began in 2019 when Widodo appointed him defence minister. The old general used the platform to launch another run at the palace with, lo and behold, Widodo’s eldest son, Gibran, as his running mate.

This was rather controversial because the rules said a VP candidate had to be 40 years of age, and Gibran was only 36. Luckily for the Widodo clan (and Prabowo, who coasted to victory on the president’s quiet imprimatur), the Constitutional Court ruled this didn’t matter in Gibran’s case because he was already in public office as the mayor of Solo, his dad’s old job. The deciding vote was cast by then-chief justice Anwar Usman – Widodo’s brother-in-law and Gibran’s uncle.

This farce was almost topped in August when Widodo’s parliamentary minions sought to ignore court rulings and pass laws that would have weakened Prabowo’s future opposition and allowed the president’s other son, jet-setting influencer Kaesang Pangarep, to get around minimum age requirements and run in gubernatorial elections. Protests gave leaders pause, and the nation stepped back from a constitutional crisis.

When he goes on Sunday, Widodo will leave a trail of infrastructure, an adoring public and a trembling democracy. Now, strap in for Prabowo and Gibran.

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