Polishing the Plin-Plan
President
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| Jolly Jokowi - man of the people - as seen before his election |
The always dapper Indonesian President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo
is a splendid advocate for batik. Most
days he wears a new design; whatever the colour or pattern the traditional
shirts dazzle on his slim athletic frame.
His plump PDIP (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle)
boss and former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, who famously dismissed him as
‘a party official’, once remarked that he couldn’t be a politician because he
wasn’t sufficiently portly. She might
have added ‘Machiavellian’.
If Jokowi wasn’t running the world’s third largest democracy
he could grace a catwalk for models are supposed to be seen, not heard.
Unfortunately being the seventh president of the Republic
requires him to give speeches. These neither arouse not inspire - they anesthetise.
The pause, so important in oratory and mastered by Megawati’s father first
president Soekarno, becomes an embarrassment with the reserved Javanese: Has he lost his way, his notes or both?
It’s not the only disenchantment with the man who seized the
top job in the 2014 direct election by a narrow margin. He won not so much for what he was, but what
he wasn’t – a member of the corrupt oligarchy that’s run the nation of 250
million for so long and so badly.
Unreal expectations were also projected onto the former
Governor of Jakarta, considered a friend of the wong cilik (ordinary folk) by taking walkabouts (blusukan) to hear the word on the
street.
The illogical leap followed that he’d be a Lee Kuan Yew scourge
of corruptors and a compassionate Nelson Mandela on human rights and social
issues. A reformer, though not a liberal; the term carries negative baggage,
particularly with Muslims.
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| The man Indonesia wanted - but hasn't got |
These hopes have been shredded with Jokowi’s failure to
wield a big stick against the rent-seekers and his flawed reasoning for executing
drug traffickers.
Economically he’s plin-plan
- one minute a protectionist, the next a free trader; anti West, then
welcoming foreign investors.
His politically savvy supporters aware of the disappointments
have been involved in makeovers partly led by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. Unfortunately they’ve compounded the problem
Retno is the first woman to hold the position and a surprise
pick. Jakarta scuttlebutt claims her
credentials include a close relationship with Megawati.
The former Ambassador to the Netherlands doesn’t have the
intellectual firepower of her predecessor Dr Marty Natalegawa. This is obvious
from attempts to bolster Jokowi’s credentials as an international statesman
when all evidence indicates his policy priorities and personal interests are
domestic.
To counter this image Retno took letters urging peace from
Jokowi to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Saudi King Salman bin
Abdulaziz.
No request had been made for Indonesia to
broker a deal. Unsurprisingly nothing
came from the trip – Indonesia, like Saudi Arabia, is a Sunni Muslim nation
that trashes Shia – the majority faith in Iran.
On her return Retno, who presumably hatched the
idea, made much of the 20,000 kilometres travelled on her ‘diplomacy marathon’
but nothing on the results:
“We in the Islamic world … need to ensure that
the region where most of the Muslim population resides, the Middle East, is
peaceful, stable and prosperous, and continue to voice Islam as rakhmatan lil alamin (a blessing to the
universe).”
The next stage in the attempted transformation came during this month’s (Feb) trip to the
US-ASEAN Summit where it seems the President said little and achieved less.
‘Jokowi conveys words of wisdom’ said one
headline over a story about a courtesy call to Choummaly Sayasone of Laos on
becoming chair of ASEAN: ”I am sure the chairmanship will lead ASEAN to be
better and more successful.”
If Jokowi thinks the octogenarian former general who has been running the People’s Revolutionary
Party in his Marxist-Leninist state for the past decade can put pep and purpose
into the 39-year old ASEAN then the Indonesian is letting diplomatic niceties
eclipse reality.
While Jokowi was heading to California,
Indonesia’s TV One (a station owned by a conglomerate headed by Aburizal
Bakrie, a strong opponent of Jokowi during the 2014 election) telecast an ‘exclusive’ interview with the President.
This turned out to be a brief love-in with
lawyer and media executive Karni Ilyas heavily buttressed with thumpty-thump
music and fast-edited clips of the
President looking decisive.
Jokowi claimed problems of infrastructure were
holding back the nation, but failed to explain how the roads will be rapidly broadened and lengthened before gridlock
cripples the economy. The mounting
frenzy against LGBT groups and ‘deviant’, sects of Islam didn’t get a look in.
Jokowi comes across as a nice one-on-one guy, not
the tangiest spice on the menu but the sort householders might elect as their
RT (Rukun Tetangga) neighbourhood
chief. He’d sort out stray cat and rubbish problems without snarling or taking
sides; there’d be no suggestions he’d trouser their donations for paving the
footpath. Nor would he initiate
anything.
The wong
cilik still seem to like him as his former opponents are in more disarray
than the US Republicans. However it
would be naïve to think no plots exist in a country where conspiracies go with
the rice.
The real power is muttered to be the
tough-talking US-trained former
four-star General Luhut
Binsar Panjaitan, Chief of Staff of the President’s Executive Office,
whose credentials include a past business partnership with Jokowi.
Despite his military background Luhut dresses
plainly. In batik he looks scruffy – so
little chance of promotion – particular as he’s reported to be much disliked by
Megawati.
So for the meantime Jokowi looks svelte and safe
– provided he stays home and stops trying to be someone else.
(First published in New Mandala 23 February 2016. See: http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2016/02/23/polishing-the-plin-plan-president/
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