Hayat Indriyatno – The past year was one of inspired figures, graft allegations and political bickering. As we look ahead to 2013, the Jakarta Globe takes you back to the individuals and groups who, for better or worse, captured the headlines throughout 2012. Here they are, in no particular order:

Joko Widodo

The most electrifying figure in the news this year was arguably Joko Widodo, the mayor of the Central Java city of Solo who went on to win the election for governor of Jakarta.

Previously recognized by the Home Affairs Ministry as the best mayor in the nation, and in the running this year for best mayor in the world for his work in Solo, Joko was a last-minute pick for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) in naming its ticket ahead of the poll in July.

He started out the year well, earning praise for his backing of a vocational school in Solo that had produced its own car. By March, he was officially on the PDI-P's ticket with Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a former district head from Bangka-Belitung renowned for his pioneering efforts at transparency.

The pair's humble origins, grass-roots approach and promises of meaningful reform in the city's staid bureaucracy won over voters. The checkered shirt sported by Joko and Basuki throughout the campaigning also helped them to stand out against the five other tickets, while a viral fan music video cemented their populist credentials.

Despite all this, opinion polls ahead of the election in July consistently gave the incumbent, Fauzi Bowo, the lead. So when Joko emerged the winner, albeit without enough of a lead to avoid a runoff, it came as a huge surprise to analysts.

Campaigning by Fauzi's team turned ugly ahead of the runoff vote in September, with religious and ethnic slurs made against Basuki. However, Joko's team took it all in stride and went on to win the second round of balloting comfortably.

The new governor's popularity continued to rise even after taking office, as he embarked on regular visits to slums and kampungs and promised a raft of sweeping changes to urban planning, transportation and flood control.

But analysts say the honeymoon may be coming to a close as the intensifying rainy season causes widespread flooding and traffic chaos, with the administration appearing to have done little to prevent or mitigate the problem.

Next year, though, will be Joko's true litmus test as governor, when a series of major programs is set to kick off, including the construction of the long-awaited mass rapid transit rail line.

Dahlan Iskan

Before Joko Widodo rose to prominence, Dahlan Iskan was the public figure electrifying people with his hands-on, reformist and often unorthodox leadership.

In March, the state enterprises minister won praise from commuters and criticism from politicians when he threw an angry fit at a toll gate in Jakarta after finding that only two of the four booths were operating, resulting in a long tailback. He then opened one of the boom gates, allowing around 100 cars through without paying.

Despite being criticized for acting rashly, Dahlan went on to do the same thing at another toll gate in April – only to apologize afterward when he found out that it was operated by a private company and not an SOE.

The minister has also championed plans to overhaul Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, including building a rail line from Jakarta to the airport next year.

He made his biggest splash in October, though, with allegations that legislators had shaken down executives at various SOEs for kickbacks in exchange for approving their funding requests.

The allegations prompted the House of Representatives' Ethics Council to launch an inquiry, which is still ongoing. In the process, some of those named by Dahlan were subsequently cleared, and the minister has since publicly apologized for implicating them.

Dahlan, like Constitutional Court chairman Mahfud M.D. and, to a lesser extent, Joko, is among the favorites to get a presidential or vice presidential ticket in the 2014 election. He has not ruled out the prospect of contesting the poll.

Marty Natalegawa

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa kept a relatively low profile throughout 2012 but still had a major impact on current issues, particularly in helping ease tensions over conflicting claims to territory in the South China Sea.

In January, the minister confirmed that Indonesia would send observers to a disputed area on the Thai-Cambodia border, in a sign of Indonesia's growing diplomatic clout in the region.

He was also vocal in urging long-awaited democratic reforms in Myanmar, which this year held a by-election that saw junta critic and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi win a seat in parliament.

Though the Foreign Ministry took a lot of flak for failing to protect Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and other countries, Marty made the protection of workers a top priority in his bilateral talks with officials from those countries.

His biggest coup came in July, after a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations failed for the first time in the bloc's 45-year history to present a joint statement because of the ongoing South China Sea disputes.

A flurry of diplomacy saw Marty visit his counterparts in Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia to finally wrangle consensus on the issue.

But the minister has not stopped there. He continues to urge regional leaders to work toward a permanent solution to the disputes, leveraging Indonesia's own lack of claims in the matter to maximize Jakarta's diplomatic push.

Mahfud M.D.

Mahfud has since 2008 helmed the Constitutional Court, one of the few perceived bastions of integrity in the country, and earned both praise and criticism for the institution's rulings.

The past year was not much different. In January, his court helped bring a long-running series of politically motivated attacks in Aceh to an end when it ordered the provincial polling authorities to register candidates who had previously missed the registration deadline for the gubernatorial election there.

In February, the court made a landmark ruling that gave children born out of wedlock full inheritance rights to their fathers' estates. Prior to this, such children had no legally recognized ties to their fathers.

In April, the court caught flak for annulling an article on smoking from the 2009 Health Law, effectively allowing managers of office and commercial buildings to allow smoking facilities on their premises. This scuppered a Jakarta bylaw that completely barred smoking from all such buildings by stipulating that smoking areas should be located outside the premises.

In August, Mahfud ruled that the General Elections Commission (KPU) should carry out a verification process for all parties seeking to contest the 2014 elections, and not just the new parties or those without seats in the House of Representatives. The move was welcomed by the smaller parties, who argued that the larger, more established parties had previously been given an advantage by not having to undergo verification.

Mahfud's most controversial decision came in November, when he declared upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas defunct. The ruling sent shockwaves through the business community and raised questions about the fate of existing oil and gas contracts.

The government, however, was quick to establish a new oversight agency and made assurances that existing and future contracts would not be impacted by the ruling.

With his retirement looming next April, Mahfud is widely speculated to be seeking a stab at the presidency or vice presidency in 2014.

The National Awakening Party (PKB) says it is currently considering nominating him, but most analysts have linked him to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.

Aburizal Bakrie

Business tycoon and Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie appeared headed for a good year when in February it was announced that a spat with British banking scion Nathaniel Rothschild over their joint London-listed mining company, Bumi Plc, had been resolved.

By September, however, the delicate truce was broken as Rothschild ordered an investigation into Bumi's Indonesian operations. Since then, both sides have threatened to buy the other out of the partnership. Rothschild has suggested that the Bakries lack the capital for such a move.

The Bakrie Group has been busy selling assets, including its toll road operations, to pay mounting debt, which is tied to the falling Bumi stock.

On the political front, Aburizal was officially nominated by his party in July as its presidential candidate for 2014. However, the decision to not consider any other candidates prompted protest from Akbar Tandjung, the venerated former chairman and current head of Golkar's advisory board.

This fueled speculation that Golkar was not as united as it appeared to be on an Aburizal candidacy, with talk that another ex-chairman, Jusuf Kalla, should have been given the nod.

In December, a letter from Akbar, warning that Aburizal's poll numbers were too low with less than two years until the election, revived talk of a high-level rift.

Analysts have argued that Aburizal's consistently low poll numbers, especially when compared to Kalla, should prompt a rethink by the party's central executive board about who it should ultimately nominate. But supporters of the chairman insist that there is enough time to win over voters.

The party, though, has not ruled out a final re-evaluation of its decision, which will come during a national caucus next year.

Bang Haji

Rhoma Irama, the country's self-styled king of dangdut, had for years been out of the public limelight. In 2012, though, he made a comeback in fiery fashion.

In July, during campaigning ahead of the second round of voting in the Jakarta gubernatorial election, he was captured on video giving a sermon to Muslim followers in which he urged them not to vote for a non-Muslim leader – an indirect reference to Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the Christian running mate of front-runner Joko Widodo.

Rhoma, who was one of the celebrity backers of Fauzi Bowo, the incumbent governor, argued that he was simply parlaying a message that was in the Koran and that his sermon did not constitute a racial slur.

The uproar that followed, as well as the series of copycat sermons given by other conservative Muslim clerics, forced Fauzi's campaign on the defensive. Rhoma was reported to the authorities but escaped punishment.

But the dangdut king would not remain out of sight for very long. In November, he popped up again, this time with the announcement that he had a calling to run for president in the 2014 election.

Several senior politicians argued that he had the popularity to mount an effective bid, and the National Awakening Party (PKB) even hinted that he was one of the potential candidates that it intended to nominate.

However, others have taken the prospect of a Rhoma candidacy less seriously. Fellow dangdut singer Inul Daratista, with whom Rhoma has long been on hostile terms, joked that if he ran, she would volunteer to be his running mate.

The Democratic Party

The past year is likely one that the ruling Democratic Party will want to put behind it. Already reeling from a raft of corruption allegations leveled by its former treasurer, Muhammad Nazaruddin, the party began 2012 trying to contain the fallout.

The revelations from Nazaruddin's trial led to one of the parties most high-profile figures, deputy secretary general and former Miss Indonesia Angelina Sondakh, being named a suspect by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in February. She faces 12 years in prison on bid-rigging charges. A verdict is expected early next year.

For his part, Nazaruddin was convicted in a separate bid-rigging case in April and sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

Another top Democrat to fall from grace was Siti Hartati Murdaya, a member of the party's board of patrons and a key financier of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's 2009 re-election bid. In August, she was also named a graft suspect by the KPK over allegations that her palm oil companies bribed a district head in Central Sulawesi to issue them operating permits.

But the biggest scalp claimed was that of Andi Mallarangeng, the sports minister and a close Yudhoyono protege. After months of being implicated in mishandling a Rp 2.5 trillion sports center project, he was named a suspect by the KPK in early December. In a rare move for a top official accused of wrongdoing, he immediately resigned from the cabinet.

The probe into the sports center could extend even higher. Democrat chairman Anas Urbaningrum and his wife have been repeatedly accused by Nazaruddin of involvement in the case. And in an eye-catching revelation, the disgraced ex-treasurer has also pointed the finger at Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, the party's secretary general and youngest son of the president.

KPK

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) started out the year with a new leadership helmed by Abraham Samad, a brash lawyer who promised significant progress during his time in charge.

The public did not have long to wait. In January, the KPK named Miranda Goeltom, the former senior deputy governor of Bank Indonesia, a suspect for bribing legislators.

Previous KPK leaders had for years failed to bring charges against Miranda in connection with a case in 2004 in which dozens of legislators were bribed to vote Miranda into the second-highest post in the central bank.

In February, the KPK struck again, naming Democratic Party legislator Angelina Sondakh a suspect in a bid-rigging case. Other senior Democrats would follow later in the year, namely financier Siti Hartati Murdaya and Andi Mallarangeng, the former sports minister.

Andi's case marked the first time that a serving minister had been named a graft suspect, and signaled that the KPK would not be swayed by rank or party.

In another landmark case, the KPK named two police generals suspects in July in relation to an equipment procurement case at the National Police's traffic division.

The move prompted a backlash by the police, who initially tried to prevent KPK investigators seizing any documents as evidence. Police then ordered the recall of several officers on loan to the KPK as investigators. When some of them balked, the police revived a closed case of abuse of power dating back to 2008 against one of the officers. However, this measure fell short.

In response to public indignation at the police's behavior, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the force to allow the KPK to carry out its investigation and questioned the revival of the 2008 case.

The KPK will be hard-pressed to top its 2012 feats next year, but with several high-profile graft cases still unfolding, more heads are bound to roll.

Football

Indonesian football continued to be plagued by off-the-field disputes that resulted in a tragic loss of life this year.

At the end of February, the national team suffered a historic 10-0 loss to Bahrain during qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. The margin of victory and the fact that Bahrain needed to overhaul a nine-goal deficit on rival Qatar immediately prompted widespread speculation about match-fixing. A FIFA probe later dismissed the notion.

The defeat, though, highlighted the poor state of the national team, which was cobbled together from mostly inexperienced players from the league sanctioned by the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI). Most of the regular national team players were considered ineligible because they played in a league run by the breakaway Indonesian Football Savior Committee (KPSI).

In June, the PSSI and KPSI signed a truce in Kuala Lumpur, but were soon at loggerheads again over the selection of players for the AFC U-22 Cup in 2013.

In the AFF Suzuki Cup in November, a competition in which Indonesia reached the final in 2010, the national team failed to make it out of the group stage.

In November, Paraguayan footballer Diego Mendieta died destitute and alone in a hospital in Solo, Central Java, after being denied four months' wages by his club Persis Solo. His death fueled public indignation at how clubs in the country were being run as a result of the split between the PSSI and KPSI.

Things got worse when, facing suspension by FIFA in mid-December, the PSSI and KPSI failed to resolve their dispute. However, in what FIFA president Sepp Blatter called an early Christmas gift to the country, FIFA extended the deadline to March 30.

Regional heads

Mayors, district heads and governors have long had a poor reputation for integrity, and events throughout 2012 demonstrated why.

In January, the Supreme Court overturned an acquittal for Agusrin Najamuddin, the suspended governor of Bengkulu, in a Rp 20.1 billion embezzlement case. However, Agusrin refused to start serving his four-year sentence, instead turning to Islamic studies as an excuse. He was finally jailed in April.

But he was far from the only dirty official turned belligerent in 2012. Also in January, Basyrah Lubis, the head of Padang Lawas district in North Sumatra, was given a six-month suspended sentence for graft; in February, Eep Hidayat of Subang district in West Java was sentenced to five years; in March, Bekasi mayor Mochtar Muhammad got six years for graft; and in May, Timur Satono, the East Lampung district chief, was slapped with 15 years. All these officials defied the verdicts. Eep only went to jail after a month; Mochtar went on the run and was arrested hiding out in Bali in March; Basyrah challenged his dismissal, preventing district authorities from inaugurating a new chief; while Satono remains at large.

In December, Aceng Fikri put his West Java district of Garut on the national radar when it was revealed that he had earlier in the year married a 17-year-old girl and subsequently divorced her by text message – on the pretext that she was not a virgin when they wed.

The case caused a nationwide uproar and even caught the attention of the likes of the BBC and CNN. To add to the matter of personal indiscretion, Aceng now stands accused by a Garut resident of alleged fraud linked to the offer of the vacant post of deputy district head.

The district legislature has since voted overwhelmingly to have him removed from office, although he continues to defy calls to step down.