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Stability a key legacy of Joko Widodo's problematic presidency

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East Asia Forum - September 9, 2024

After a decade in power, Joko Widodo leaves Indonesia a changed country – one that has benefited from healthy economic growth and has greater international standing. But whether the changes in Indonesia are all for the better or mainly for the worse is very much in the eye of the beholder and depends significantly on which element of the outgoing president's legacy one chooses to emphasise.

His administration's policies have undeniably lifted the living standards of many millions of Indonesians and bolstered the nation's international influence. He has presided over Indonesia's shift onto a new economic plane – one where the priorities of escaping the middle-income trap are as urgent an agenda item as dealing with the challenges of extreme poverty – and seen Jakarta claim a greater role in international affairs as an advocate for developing-country interests. A notable achievement in Widodo's second term was Indonesia's chairing of the G20 Summit at a difficult time, though it did less well in strategically positioning ASEAN when Indonesia chaired it in 2023.

A fair assessment of his legacy must give credit to the technocrats – most prominently his high-performing, tough-as-nails finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, but also others like Retno Marsudi in Foreign Affairs and Basuki Hadimuljono in Infrastructure – who have done much of the intellectual and bureaucratic grunt work behind the presidential photo ops. It also demands acknowledging the risks arising from the fiscal legacy of Widodo's infrastructure spending spree, the unaddressed challenges of institutional reform that Widodo leaves his successor with and the continued indulgence of national protectionist reflexes that afflict key parts of the policymaking apparatus.

But it is the erosion of the institutional achievements of the reformasi movement – a movement aimed at dismantling the legacies of Suharto's thirty-year dictatorship – that unquestionably casts a shadow over Widodo's legacy, as Liam Gammon writes in this week's lead article.

With six weeks to go until he hands over power to his successor Prabowo Subianto, says Gammon, 'Widodo has used the wave of local elections scheduled for November 2024 as a way to shape the political landscape of the first Prabowo term in his favour'.

Widodo understands 'the potential utility of a prominent governorship as a launching pad for the presidency, but also the power of subnational officials in press-ganging neighbourhood and village level officials into getting out the vote for national-level candidates'. A key goal recently has been to frustrate the ambitions of opposition figure Anies Baswedan from mounting a political comeback in the Jakarta gubernatorial election, which has prompted criticism from progressives that Widodo has crossed a line into authoritarian political tactics of disqualifying political rivals.

How does Indonesia's inching towards the grey zone between democracy and authoritarianism affect its regional leadership role? An important point is that even in the plausible scenario that the Prabowo presidency sees an accretion of presidential power beyond Widodo's, Indonesia will still remain home to a technocratic intelligentsia based in its universities, think tanks and media who don't feel obliged to parrot the government line, but can freely propose and debate ideas about Indonesia's approach to its development challenges and its international policy agenda.

The relatively open intellectual environment in Indonesia, despite the pressure on many other aspects of its democracy, is a resource for the whole region. ASEAN is at a crucial moment, facing the need to upgrade its institutions and policy agenda to shore up its importance as the fulcrum of multilateral cooperation in East Asia. Indonesian engagement with this effort is necessary to its success, but Prabowo's attention to ASEAN can't be assumed. During his first presidential term, Prabowo's attention to ASEAN issues will not be forced by Indonesia having the chair of the grouping.

It will be the job of Indonesia's foreign policy thinkers, as well as Indonesia's international partners, to hammer home the message to the Prabowo administration that taking up a leadership role within ASEAN isn't too small a job for Indonesia but a crucial opportunity, even as it preens its self-image as a great power in waiting.

The region will certainly need Indonesian engagement in the coming years to keep any effort at ASEAN reform on-track and the fundamental stability of Indonesia's politics is an asset in this regard. Malaysia is also at risk of losing focus on ASEAN's importance to its own national and political interests ahead of its chair year in 2025 as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim deals with ideological distractions. The Philippines' chair year in 2026 may be coloured by its establishment's ambivalence towards ASEAN as it leans into its alliance relationship with the United States in response to its stoush with China in the South China Sea.

For ASEAN, the silver lining of the Widodo-era politics is a robust stability that can be mobilised by Indonesia's foreign policy leadership, inside and outside of government, to build a consensus that it is the critical platform through which Indonesia can leverage its own national interest as well as apply its energies as a leader of the developing and non-aligned world more broadly.

The EAF Editorial Board is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University. The ANU will convene the annual Indonesia Update conference on 13-14 September which will be live streamed. Please join online or in person in Canberra.

Source: https://eastasiaforum.org/2024/09/09/stability-a-key-legacy-of-joko-widodos-problematic-presidency

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