Revisiting the rise of Jokowi

Abstract

Just a few months into his first term, the new president of Indonesia, Jokowi, began to disappoint his supporters who had expected his presidency to enhance the quality of Indonesia’s dysfunctional democracy.¹ Contrary to his campaign promise of establishing a ‘clean’ and ‘professional’ government without horse-trading, Jokowi granted strategic government positions to those with links to oligarchic interests, indicating that key decisions were largely dictated by his party patrons. Much of the literature, which has tended to portray the rise of Jokowi as a challenge to oligarchic interests, is not well placed to account for this ‘U-turn’. Against this backdrop, this article explores another dimension of Jokowi’s ascendance, arguing that it should also be understood in the broader context of oligarchic adaptation of ‘post-clientelist’ initiatives – measures to attract enlightened voters to compensate for increasingly ineffective clientelistic mobilisation. This is not to argue that Jokowi was simply made a ‘puppet’ of his patrons, but to suggest that more attention needs to be directed to the broader structural constraints placed on Jokowi in order to have a more nuanced understanding of the political context in which he must operate.

• Elections
• Indonesia
• Jokowi
• oligarchy
• post-clientelist initiatives

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 8th Asia Political and International Studies Association Annual Congress in Chiang Mai, 19–20 September 2014. The authors are grateful to Allen Hicken, Julio Teehankee, Mark Thompson, Prajak Kongkirati, Patrick Ziegenhain and other participants for their questions, comments and suggestions for revision. The author is also grateful to Luky Djani for sharing his thoughtful insights on Indonesian politics. Standard disclaimers apply.

Notes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

1. The views expressed in this article are those of Yuki Fukuoka solely in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the Government of Japan.

2. This is, of course, not to suggest that these analyses were simply grounded in a naïve faith in Jokowi. Indeed, many of them, written by prominent Indonesianists, were political activism, driven by a well-grounded fear of what Prabowo would do if elected. Still, these analyses, many of which were preoccupied with highlighting the danger of Prabowo and naturally provided more favourable coverage of Jokowi, perhaps inadvertently, raised expectations of the new president to an unsustainably high level.

3. For a similar analysis, see Winters (2014b). For a review of SBY’s presidency, see Aspinall et al. (2015).

4. In 2011, the Indonesian Survey Institute published a poll showing that the parliament enjoyed the second lowest level of trust among Indonesians, while political parties were at the bottom of the list. The same survey also revealed that only 20% of respondents regarded themselves as ‘close’ to a particular party, down from 86% in 1999 (LSI, 2011).

5. This is particularly so in urban areas. The most conspicuous is the rise of educated voters in Jakarta. In 2007, for example, 32.3% of Jakartan adults had graduated only from elementary school. The corresponding percentage dropped to 19.3% in 2013. The percentage of Jakartans who had graduated from senior high schools increased from 36.2% in 2007 to 41.9% in 2012. Moreover, the percentage of the Jakartan population with bachelor’s degrees also increased from 10% in 2007 to 17.3% in 2012 (Hamid, 2014: 98).

6. If money politics still constitutes the primary factor determining election results, we would expect to see a high rate of re-election among incumbents who tend to have greater access to state resources than their opponents. The incumbent re-election rate in Indonesia, however, has not been particularly high. Indeed, in the 2014 legislative elections, only 40% of the incumbents could retain their seats in parliament. See, for example, Formappi (2014).

7. Some of the politicians we spoke to admitted that money alone does not guarantee their survival. Thus they began to conduct extensive dialogues with the electorate to identify campaign agendas that would attract the public’s attention (interview with Yoyok Rio Sudibyo (Bupati of Batang, 24 February 2013), Selle KS Dalle (South Sulawesi Province legislator, 20 May 2015) and Nyumarno (Bekasi District legislator, 3 August 2015)).

8. Mietzner (2009), similarly, argues that the introduction of direct local elections reshaped local politics by providing a new, but still limited, mechanism of vertical accountability: the elections proved to be highly competitive, with an incumbency turnover rate of 40%. Although almost all candidates belonged to old-established elites, he argues, the electorate favoured relatively clean politicians.

9. Among those who were quick to adopt this strategy was Prabowo who, despite originating from a wealthy family of political aristocrats, deliberately recast himself as an outsider trying to save Indonesia. For a discussion of this, see Mietzner (2015).

10. On Hashim Djojohadikusumo, see Montlake (2010).

11. Fealy (2013) points out that Ahok’s nomination was Prabowo’s strategy to secure the support of Chinese voters, or at least neutralise their opposition to him, before the 2014 elections.

12. Throughout the gubernatorial election, Hashim Djojohadikusumo funded the surveys, outdoor advertising and media ads. Not surprisingly, those ads always featured a closing statement from his older brother, Prabowo (Tempo, 2012). If Gerindra provided the Jokowi-Ahok pair with a significant sum of campaign money, it was PDI-P that helped grassroots mobilisation. The party went all out for the election. Megawati ordered all members of DPR to mobilise for the campaign, and it was reported that at least two members were sent to each electoral district (Tempo, 2012).

13. A number of journalists told the author that, during his time as Jakarta governor, Jokowi often appeared puzzled, sometimes even unsatisfied, when journalists finished interviews without asking him about his presidential ambition.

14. Jokowi’s nomination was delayed due to Puan’s strong objection to Jokowi’s nomination (Mietzner, 2014a; Tempo, 2014a). To sort out the differences within the party, Megawati refrained from making a quick decision. Instead, she formed the ‘the team of eleven’ (tim sebelas), consisting of people close to her, to decide upon a qualified candidate for the presidency. Eventually, the team submitted its report on January 20 2014, concluding that Jokowi would be a feasible presidential candidate. The team also suggested that if Jokowi’s nomination was announced sooner rather than later, support for Jokowi could translate into increasing votes cast for PDI-P. Though Puan eventually accepted Jokowi as the party’s candidate, her team reportedly continued to object to an early announcement; apparently, if the nomination was announced before the legislative elections, a PDI-P victory would be attributed to the Jokowi effect instead of being credited to Puan’s campaign team (Tempo, 2014a).

15. This paragraph heavily draws on Fukuoka and Na Thalang (2014).

16. This is partly due to the ‘open-list’ proportional representation adopted in the last election. This system enables voters to choose a party as well as one of several candidates listed by the party on the ballot. The seats won by the parties go to the candidates that win the most individual votes. While this system enables voters to express preferences for the individuals who will represent them, candidates resort to extreme measures to outdo their rivals from within their own party (see Aspinall, 2014b).

17. The vast majority of Indonesian voters rely on TV, rather than print media or the internet, as their main source of news (International Republican Institute, 2013).

18. Through various channels, Jokowi’s rivals denounced him for neglecting his mandate to serve a full five-year term as governor of Jakarta (Kompas, 2014a). At the same time, Jokowi began to be portrayed as ‘Megawati’s puppet’. Prabowo even promoted a narrative that the elections were a contest between puppets of foreign countries (i.e. the Jokowi camp) and an Indonesia that is sovereign. ‘Do you all want an Indonesia that is sovereign, controlling its own wealth, and standing on its own feet – or an Indonesia led by a puppet of foreign power (boneka-boneka kekuatan asing)?’, said Prabowo (Kompas, 2014b).

19. Similarly, Amran Sulaiman helped Jokowi improve his electoral performance in East Indonesia. Jokowi is said to have been beholden to the support of Sulaiman, who was subsequently appointed to Agriculture Minister and now constitutes one of the ‘untouchables’ in Jokowi’s cabinet along with Rini Soemarno (the State-Owned Enterprises Minister) and Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan (the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security) (personal communications with local observers. See also Republika (2014)).

20. Jokowi also invited AM Hendropriyono, former head of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN), who allegedly has a record of human rights violations, to join his campaign team. After Jokowi’s victory in the presidential election was officiated, Hendropriyono was appointed as an advisor to the transition team, which raised eyebrows among human rights activists.

21. Some observers argue that the coalitions formed in this year’s presidential election are quite ideologically defined. Power (2014), for example, argues that ‘the weeks of political maneuvering have resulted in a plainly polarised pair of coalitions: an ostensibly pluralist alliance backing Jokowi-JK, and a Prabowo-Hatta coalition possessing a far more obvious “Islamic” character’. Such an argument, however, is based on the presumed significance of religious cleavage which, as many observers have noted, has become largely irrelevant in defining the way parties operate (see Ambardi, 2009; Hadiz, 2010; Fukuoka, 2013a; Robison and Hadiz, 2004; Slater, 2004; Slater and Simmons, 2013).

22. PKB chairman Muhaimin Iskandar, for example, said that he could guarantee that the religious affairs minister would come from Nadhlatul Ulama (NU), PKB’s traditional base of support, if Jokowi was elected, which then generated the perception that Jokowi’s commitment was not shared by his partners (Jakarta Globe, 2014b).

23. According to Mietzner, from the beginning Prabowo enjoyed the support of 17% to 23% of voters who backed his visions despite his dubious human rights record. But an additional 25% to 27% of voters were added to these original supporters after Jokowi failed to offer a clear concept for Indonesia’s future, further increasing the electability of Prabowo in the polls (Asia Pacific Editor, 2014).

24. For analyses of the presidential elections, see Aspinall and Mietzner (2014a, 2014b, 2014c); Fukuoka and Na Thalang (2014); Mietzner (2014b).

25. This sections pays particular attention to an earlier stage of Jokowi’s presidency as dynamics reflects.

26. For a concise assessment of Jokowi’s first year in power, see Muhtadi (2015).