Joko Widodo’s power play in Jakarta

The political buzz in the Indonesian political circles is that the outgoing President Joko Widodo, also popularly known as Jokowi, as he has completed two terms in office and he cannot contest a third according to the constitution, and retains  80 per cent popularity rating, is supporting two of the candidates. One is from his own party, the Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Ganjar Pranowo, and the other, Prabowo Subianto, indirectly.

Prabowo lost out to Jokowi in the previous two presidential contests. Prabowo is the son-in-law of long-time Indonesian authoritarian leader Suharto who was overthrown in 1998. Prabowo was also the defence minister in Jokowi’s government from 2019. Ganjar was the choice of the regional units of PDI-P, and Jokowi was bound to support him. At a PDI-P event in September, Jokowi disclosed what he told Ganjar, the official candidate of his party, “I whispered to him, ‘After you are inaugurated – a day after you are inaugurated – you have to take care of food self-sufficiency. Don’t take too long.’”  

It is interesting that Jokowi’s personal network of volunteers, Projo, are learnt to have expressed support for Prabowo. Projo head Budi Arie Satiadi said, “The president told us some criteria of his future successor. We conclude what the president meant was Prabowo Subianto.”

Jokowi is supposed to have told the two opposition parties, Golkar and National Mandate Party (PAN), to support Prabowo. Golkar and PAN are supporting Prabowo. The question of course remains whether their decision is their own or they have done so at the best of Jokowi. In the September opinion poll ratings, Prabowo was leading over Ganjar 34 per cent to 30 per cent.

Observers see this double-game strategy as the president’s bid to exert his considerable influence in national politics. The presidential elections are to be held in February. Jokowi is not retiring from active politics quietly. Sana Jaffrey, a research fellow at Australian National University says, “This is just showing that he is every bit as much a transactional, practical and self-interested politician as his contemporaries. He is just not ready to part with power yet.”

Jokowi’s two sons and a son-in-law are in key positions in the country’s political system, which raises the suspicion that Jokowi is keen to sustain dynastic politics which characterises Indonesia and many other countries in the region. His eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 36, is mayor of Surakarta. Jokowi would like him to be the vice-presidential candidate to Prabowo, thus preparing his way to be president.

But the minimum age for the vice-presidential candidate is 40. The constitutional court, head by Jokowi’s brother-in-law, is to consider appeals for lowering the eligibility age. His younger son, Kaesang Pangarep, 28, has been made head of the Indonesian Solidarity Party, days after he joined the party. Jokowi’s son-in-law, Bobby Nasution, is the mayor of Medan, the third largest city in Indonesia.

Jokowi has however denied that he has any plans for dynasty, and he was sure that people will decide. Of course, the implication is that if the people vote for any of the members of his family, then it is not his fault. And he can always cite the example of Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia’s first president, and she served as president and her daughter is the speaker of the national legislature. When Suharto rules for around three decades, it was nepotism that was the characteristic of his regime.

The question is whether a popular leader like Jokowi can avoid the temptations of dynastic politics because people like him and they are likely to vote for someone connected to him and his family. What seems to worry Indonesia-watchers is that the 1998 democratic revolution which threw out Suharto regime on nepotism is once again slipping into evils of dynasty politics.