COURTING DISASTER

 LOSERS WHINGE, WINNERS RULE

From left:  Winner, then losers   Credit Kompas

A tip to take a wee shot at understanding the way of doing politics in Indonesia:  Suspend rationality.  Now imagine PM Anthony Albanese offering Scott Morrison a ministry - choice from five.  Not such a smart move for Down Under but OK for next door.

Come May the Indonesian Constitutional Court should respond to challenges by the two losing candidates following the 14 February national presidential election results.  Cashiered former general Prabowo Subianto won convincingly as president-elect on his third attempt at the top job.

The hearing from a parade of outraged witnesses has been making for good daytime TV during the past fortnight, though now on pause for the Idul Fitri religious holiday.

Debate in court is a great improvement on street reactions to the 2019 election result when the defeat of  Prabowo triggered riots, torched cars, the killing of ten and the wounding of almost 400. Speculation that it was pre-planned has been rife, though the Prabowo camp  denied responsibility.

Readers might imagine this trouncing might have encouraged Prabowo, 72, to slink away from further contests and retire to his equine stud in the hills.  Instead a few months later he was welcomed back into the political ring; the man who thrashed him at the polls Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo made his prancing rival the Minister of Defence.

This gave the disgraced former soldier an arena to keep going in national politics, access  to the public purse and space for another crack at the job he’s long craved. (The Constitution bars a president from more than two terms so Jokowi wasn’t in the circus this year.)

 It also ensured Prabowo and his right-wing Gerindra (Great Indonesia Movement Party) would shut up criticising the Jokowi government.

Pearls & Irritations can announce the Court's most likely decision now:  The plaintiffs' claim will collapse and Prabowo will remain president-elect till he takes over from Jokowi on 20 October.

The near certainty of this result is underpinned by these factual pillars: Prabowo and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka (who by curious chance happens to be Jokowi’s eldest son) won 58.58 per cent of the vote.

Next was former academic and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan with 24.95 per cent, then former Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo with 16.47 per cent

Even if discrepancies, graft, pork-barreling, nepotism, Jokowi's meddling and a swag of other charges brought by the complainants are proved, the vote for Prabowo was so overwhelming, that the alleged wrongdoings wouldn’t be weighty enough to negate the result.  It would also upset the electorate in no mood for a re-run having made their choice so clearly.

Then there's the timing.  The case opened in the last week of March during the holy fasting month leading to this week’s Idul Fitri celebrations.  Though work officially continues up to the big event on 10 April the reality is that an empty tummy takes its toll.

Cameras have caught court officials nodding in the early afternoon though not because they agree with the evidence.  Speeches drone through the still air along with the mesmerising hum of air conditioners and fans.  Hunger gnaws and nicotine addiction screams.  

In the contest of legal arguments versus the imagined evening break-fast meal there’s just one winner.

Another factor: After Idul Fitri comes a two day plus holiday supposedly for earnest prayer and the mudik ritual; this means returning to distant villages to seek forgiveness from relatives for inattention to family responsibilities.  

The traffic soup is thick - about 194 million are expected on the roads - so ideal for those of different or no faiths to stay home and fix roof leaks - except the hardware shops will be shut and tradies gone.

As the hearing started Ganjar  reportedly  said Prabowo should be disqualified ”on the grounds that the way he registered himself had violated election law in addition to ethical problems resulting from nepotism and a coordinated abuse of power".

This argument pings off last year's dramatic decision by the Constitutional Court to allow Gibran, 36, to run as vice president even though he was four years younger than legally permitted.

But who needs rules and precedents when you’ve got the Chief Justice on side? Anwar Usman, who has since lost his position because he didn’t recuse himself from the case, was Gibran's uncle when the controversial decision was made.  Sticklers for the rule-of-law expected the resolution to be rescinded.  It wasn’t.

 Commented one political newsletter: “This trial (the current Constitutional Court hearing) serves more as a national face-saving exercise for Anies and Ganjar by showing the general public that the odds were against them from the start.

“Moreover, the trial provides these two former candidates with a national platform to segue into a new political direction whatever form that may take.”

Jakarta gossip suggests that might include offers of ministries by the President-elect when the court proceedings are over, following the example set by Jokowi in asking not just Prabowo into government, but also his sidekick.

Seeking the Vice Presidency in the 2019 bitter contest was business tycoon Sandiaga Uno.  He’s now Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy.

Should Anies or Ganjar get similar invites, will either seize the bribe to stay on the public payroll - or will they take an ethical stand and trash any offers ?  

The responses will  determine how far principles remain - or have tumbled down the landslip-prone hill of Indonesian democracy.

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First published in Pearls & Irritations, 9 April 2024:https://johnmenadue.com/losers-whinge-winners-rule/

 

THE MAN WHO’LL NEVER DYE WANTS CLOSER TIES

 

The civilian administrator, corruption fighter and sometime porn connoisseur who’s likely to be running the over-populated archipelago next door has some high ideals.

 

 He wants more young Indonesians to better understand their neighbour - and vice-versa.

 

But whatever Ganjar Pranowo thinks or enacts if he becomes the leader of the world’s third-largest democracy and biggest Muslim-majority nation after the 2024 February 14 election will change nothing if Australia doesn’t agree.

 

That’s because Canberra’s visa policy still discriminates, despite many pleadings, including from the present President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.

 

He raised the issue directly to PM Anthony Albanese at their July meeting in Sydney. A concession was made - though only for business. Individual visitors still face a visa fee of $190 while Malaysians pay $20. Unsurprisingly Indonesians think this is grossly unfair as they have visa-free access to all nine ASEAN neighbours. 

 

Before he can campaign to get more of his citizens into Australia to learn about our lifestyle and culture, the present Governor of Central Java - whose second five-year term ends this September - needs to beat a seasoned educator and a disgraced former general in the race to the Jakarta Palace.

 

In a short roadside interview with no media minders or reporters from partisan TV stations present, Ganjar, 54, told Michael West Media that he’d visited Australia a ‘couple of times’.

 

He spoke while flexing for a five km daybreak dashabout with his wife Siti Atiqori Suryani, 51, (a marathoner) and a dozen business and political pavement-pounders, men and women.

 

He rejected suggestions that Indonesia and its leaders just mouth polite statements about their big neighbour to mask indifference, even distrust.

 

‘Australia is very important to Indonesia, very important. I want our young people to go to Australia and invite your students to come here and study, to know more.

 

‘I support greater sister city arrangements, like the one we have here in Semarang (the capital of the Central Java province) and Brisbane.

 

‘We want more business like the proposed electric vehicle battery deals that Jokowi has been discussing with your prime minister.’

 

However, some academics claim Ganjar’s real foreign affairs interests are with Beijing where he’s been a frequent visitor: ‘With these connections, the likelihood that Indonesia’s foreign policy remains wedded to the current approach, or perhaps becomes even closer to China, is strong.’

 

Ganjar (forename use is Indonesian style and doesn’t imply intimacy) is personable and speaks reasonable English. He invites locals he meets to ask questions, and did the same with this correspondent, but was guarded throughout.

 

Requests for a sit-down interview were knocked back firmly - ‘no time, impossible’, so no chance to ask about his views on democracy, which many believe is declining under Jokowi.

 

Ganjar’s articulate and more fluent wife Siti was unworried about expanding on her husband’s responses. (Jokowi’s wife Iriana is rarely heard.) 

 

Unlike the present First Lady, Siti wears a jilbab (headscarf) supposedly a sign of piety, which some assume means being unworldly. That would be a mistake.

 

When Ganjar was flummoxed by being asked to detail how he’ll get more youngsters heading Down Under, Siti (who’s a marathoner) ran to tell of a deal between the local Diponegoro University and Griffith Uni on the Gold Coast. 

 

The campuses will together research forced labour and climate change, and their impact on women and children.

 

Jokowi and Ganjar are in the ruling mildly-left populist Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle which has a majority (128 of 575) seats in the Legislative Assembly. Their boss is the Republic’s de-facto queen, Megawati, daughter of founding president Soekarno.

 

Nominations won’t close till 25 November but three heavyweights have been confirmed. The presidency is limited to two five-year terms, so Jokowi can’t stand.

 

Ganjar’s rivals are disgraced former general and Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto who wants to get the military more involved in civilian affairs, and academic Anies Baswedan, a previous Education Minister.

 

Polls put Ganjar first one week, then Prabowo the next; Anies is usually behind. They are unreliable because samples are small and city-based.

 

As in the US, the people directly elect the president. The VP candidates have yet to be announced, but this post usually goes to someone to appease the religious rather than be politically active.

 

Ganjar and Siti - the daughter and grand-daughter of  Islamic scholars - have both been on the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) so should avoid the charge that he’s not a ‘real’ Muslim.

 

That slur is often slung at Jokowi who seems more comfortable with ancient Javanese beliefs than the 13th-century Middle East import.

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 In Indonesian affairs there’s no separation of faith and politics, Candidates’ personalities, families and quirks carry more clout than policy. 

 

 Unlike most middle-aged portly politicians slim Ganjar doesn’t dye. So his grey hair has become his trade mark, enhanced by his dedication to fitness, cycling till he broke his arm in a tumble last year. 

 

Now he walks, seemingly minus bodyguards though well protected by his equally trim sidekicks, men and women. They end their exercise in a restaurant and then take public transport back to their big black SUVs. 

 

It’s all part of the blusukan (market walkabout) campaign tactic pioneered by Jokowi as a break from formality, and which delighted Malcolm Turnbull on a Jakarta visit as PM in 2015.

 

Such displays of commonality are now rare since an Islamic radical couple stabbed and wounded Security Minister Wiranto at a public event.  But Ganjar persists.

 

He’s also deft at handling controversy. In a 2019 podcast, he admitted to watching porn, an extraordinary comment in a morally uptight nation where the Ministry of Communications bans sex across all media forms - even sites like Tumblr and Vimeo.

 

He told an interviewer: ‘If I watch porn, what is wrong with that? I like it. I am an adult. I have a wife,’ Headlines reported ‘porn OK for married men’ but no response from wives. Ganjar played the story for laughs suggesting it was a publicity stunt to reach young men.

 

If so it could have gone down the toilet in a culture where most public figures hungry for fame denounce anything suggesting immorality.  That he survived suggests he understands prudes are often hypocrites and has a blacklist.

 

Ganjar has floundered, most seriously, by backing bans against the Israeli team in the under-20 soccer World Cup, which moved to the Argentine, costing Indonesia millions in lost revenue.

 

It’s been widely reported that Ganjar was ordered to object against the wishes of Jokowi by Megawati seeking to reinforce her late father’s support for Palestine and to placate the Muslim lobby. It certainly inflamed the nation’s footy fans - and that’s just about everyone.

 

Like Jokowi, Ganjar doesn’t come from an elite Javanese family, big business or the military that run Indonesia, but his upbringing was a few notches above the riverside slum where the present president was raised.

 

Ganjar is the fifth of six kids fathered by a village cop who had various postings, so the family had status. He studied law at Gadjah Mada University and worked for oil and gas companies before entering national politics and then elected Governor on an anti-corruption platform.

 

The sales pitch for his candidacy is that he’s Jokowi update and he’ll maintain present development policies which have lifted the incumbent to a 73 per cent approval rating.  

 

When asked if that continuity includes shifting the national capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan he said ‘of course’ which is a standard Javanese response to journos’ questions, and a useful ploy to avoid scrutiny. 

 

The $50 billion project needs overseas investors who are holding out till they see who’ll be the next president. Australian money has so far shown little interest

 

Ganjar was surprised when told of the Australian rite for incoming leaders to proclaim the importance of Indonesia. 

 

Tony Abbott’s 2013 speech asserting ‘more Jakarta, less Geneva’ has become a classic, but didn’t last.

 

The then president was former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a staunch Australophile until he learned Canberra’s clumsy spooks were tapping his phone and that of his wife Kristiani Herawati.

 

The outrage has dissipated but the insult exposed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden hasn’t been forgotten. Abbott refused to apologise. There are other sores in the relationship, Australia's role in the East Timor independence referendum, the Bali bombs, drug runner executions …

 

More will follow.  That’s been the pattern. Lowy Institute surveys have shown the ignorance and distrust,  Ganjar’s plea for closer ties is the right call, but will anything happen?

 

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First published in Michael West Media, 30 July 2023: https://michaelwest.com.au/ganjar-interview-indonesias-next-president-will-never-dye-but-wants-closer-ties-with-australia/