Oligarchs with a
country
Has Indonesia’s new president Joko (Jokowi) Widodo read the
ancient works of Chinese general Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War?
In personal interviews with local media questions have
focussed on his breakfasts and wife Iriana’s dress. Like her husband she is no fashionista,
preferring plain and simple, which will infuriate the establishment’s
elaborately coiffed ice matrons shouldering Gucci bags of sharpened hatpins.
There has been no interest in what books are on the couple’s
bedside table, probably because the reporters – like many Indonesians – are not
great readers of anything longer than a 140 character tweet.
Nonetheless Indonesia’s seventh president seems to understand
the value of a quote attributed to the warrior who lived five centuries before
Christ: Keep your friends close, but
your enemies closer.
How else to explain Jokowi singling out his ‘friend’ Prabowo
Subianto for applause during the 20 October Presidential inauguration ceremony?
The former general with a black human-rights record was Jokowi’s bitter
opponent in the 9 July direct election.
Prabowo still runs a ruthless campaign to unseat the man who beat him
for the top job by eight million votes.
Another answer is that Jokowi is Javanese, an ethnic group
that believes in harmony and prefers to say ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’ to avoid
embarrassment, even when the negative is meant – a trait that can drive naïve
Westerners nuts. Perhaps the gesture went some way to placating a man with
boiling anger and cash enough to create havoc and destroy the people’s choice. It certainly put Jokowi on the high moral
ground, if such a position exists in politics.
If Jokowi truly considers his rival a friend, what
constitutes an enemy? Prabowo’s campaign
trawled pits of slime in bids to destroy Jokowi, claiming he was a Christian
planning to eradicate Islam, a communist Chinese born in Singapore and had
fathered an illegitimate son. By
comparison, the Liberal’s campaign against PM Julia Gillard was sweet and civilised.
Prabowo, who is not a parliamentarian, has assembled a
coalition of parties that outnumber Jokowi’s supporters in the national legislature. This group has already passed an
anti-democracy law cancelling regional elections in favour of Jakarta selecting
district governors, regents and mayors.
This was the system used by the authoritarian General
Suharto who led the nation for 32 years; he was also Prabowo’s former
father-in-law.
Jokowi was a furniture trader from a small town in Central
Java before being elected as local mayor, then governor of Jakarta by popular
vote – an impossible political journey in the future should the new law stand.
He has no known family connections with Jakarta’s military, business,
high-born or religious elite, qualities that make him attractive to ordinary
Indonesians, but poison to the corrupt and powerful bent on retrieving their
authority.
Commented Driyarkara School of Philosophy academic
B Herry-Priyono in The Jakarta Post: ‘Most countries have oligarchs, but in
Indonesia the oligarchs have a country. They have been lording it over us for
so long, arresting the nation from its march toward the common good.”
Six days after his inauguration, and numerous false starts,
Jokowi unwrapped his 34-member ‘Working Cabinet’, after the Corruption Eradication
Commission had recommended the exclusion of eight candidates.
The ceremony on the Presidential Palace lawn had the ministry
in identical white shirts. It was less than dignified; many ministers dashed
across the grass to get in line, though such behaviour was clearly beneath human
development and culture minister Puan Maharani; the ambitious but unpopular granddaughter
of first president Sukarno just strode.
She could afford to
take her time: Her mum is Megawati Sukarnoputri, the proud and stubborn leader
of the PDIP-Party that sponsored Jokowi after advisors persuaded her not to
stand for president, having been rejected by the electorate in the 2004 and
2009 elections. She and Puan gave him
little support, reportedly saying he was only a ‘party official’. There’s much talk that she’s the puppet
master.
Foreign minister Retno Marsudi is a career diplomat and former
Ambassador to the Netherlands, the first woman to hold the top job. Nine
ministers have business backgrounds and nine are academics, including Adelaide
University PhD graduate Pratikno, rector of Yogyakarta’s University Gadjah Mada. He’s the new State Secretary. Jokowi is a UGM
science graduate, and so is Retno.
A major concern is the selection of former general Ryamizard
Ryacudu, a noted hardliner and minister when Megawati was the fifth
president. Human rights groups have condemned
his promotion, alleging a bad record in Aceh where unsuccessful attempts were
made to destroy local rebels through overwhelming brute force.
Unlike the Westminster system, ministers can be drawn from
anywhere and are not always politicians or active members of parties. The response from the Jakarta commentariat to
the Cabinet has been lukewarm, tinted with concern, largely because 14 politicians
have been included, apparently for supporting the PDI-P rather than for their
expertise and achievements, as promised in earlier Jokowi statements.
Jokowi and his Cabinet will need to ride the bureaucracy hard
or the planned reforms to the nation’s economy and infrastructure will never
take root. Indonesia’s 4.5 million khaki-uniformed bureaucrats are skilled in
obfuscation, doing what they want, not what the politicians direct. Yes,
Minister could have been written for Indonesia.
The President will also need to nip at the heels of some
ministers, reminding them they’re there to serve, not be served.
This month Indonesia scaled the peak of inflated expectations
in the hype cycle; from now on our northern neighbour will be heading to the
trough of disillusionment before the government rises to the plateau of
productivity.
Along the way beware the oligarchs. They never forget and
seldom forgive.
(First published in On Line Opinion, 29 October 2014. For comments: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16810
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