M. Rizki Yusrial, Jakarta -The spokesperson for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), Guntur Romli, said the drop in the country's democracy index rank was due to former President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's arrogance.
He said the 7th president exploited the state to ensure the victory of his son, Gibran Rakabuming, who contested as Vice President in the 2024 general elections.
"This is the impact of Jokowi's arrogance. Thus, this index reinforces Jokowi's nomination as most corrupt leaders by OCCRP," he said in a text message to Tempo on Thursday, March 6, 2025.
Furthermore, according to Guntur, Jokowi also interfered with the Constitutional Court, whose decision relaxed the age requirements for presidential and vice presidential candidates. This was done to ensure Gibran's nomination as Vice President. Moreover, the Chair of the Constitutional Court at that time was Anwar Usman, who is none other than Jokowi's in-law.
Hence the decline in democracy perception ranking is unsurprising, he said, adding that abuse of authority and intimidation ran rampant with certain authorities.
"The key point of this report is about the centralized power and lack of oversight, which is why PDIP is determined to remain outside of the government to provide control and oversight," he said.
For your information, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a research and analysis institution based in London, UK, has just released its research results on the state of democracy in countries worldwide. According to the research findings, Indonesia's democracy perception index dropped three ranks to 59th place in 2024.
The institution spoke of several components to base the review on the global state of democracy, including electoral processes and pluralism, government functioning, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.
EIU underscored several aspects of Indonesia's democracy, with a focus on the country's political affairs, including the election of Prabowo Subianto as president alongside Gibran as his vice president.
"In Indonesia, the presidential election raised Prabowo Subianto, a former military general with a controversial past, who secretly received support from former President Joko Widodo," wrote the EIU in their research document received by Tempo on Wednesday, March 5, 2025.
– Daniel Ahmad Fajri and Vedro Imanuel Girsang contributed to this article.
Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1983551/pdip-cites-jokowis-arrogance-as-reason-for-democracy-index-setbac