By Warren Doull
In his
first nine months, Indonesia’s president Joko Widowo (Jokowi) has overseen a
remarkable resurgence of military power over Indonesian society. The military
now has agreements in place to distribute fertiliser to farmers, guard prisons, and assist the national
anti-narcotics agency.Talks are underway to also give it a role assisting the Corruption Eradication
Commission and the ministries of transportation and fisheries, Earlier this month, the military launched a new counter-terrorism squad which
some fear may compete with existing police-controlled counter-terrorism squads. The military even seems
to be weakening civil society, by conducting a nationwide campaign to tell
Indonesia’s youth that Indonesian NGOs and civil society organisations could be
vehicles of foreign interests. Why
is Jokowi making these concessions?
Jokowi is allowing this resurgence because he knows he is
not in a position to confront powerful institutions. He is a civilian president
with no money and almost no experience or networks in national politics. He is
a president who doesn’t even control his own political party, the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle, known by its Indonesian initials, PDI-P. His main
source of support, the Indonesian public, is only heard in elections, scheduled
for every five years.
As he took up his precarious position as Indonesia’s new
chief executive last October, Jokowi seems to have assessed that the biggest
threats to his presidency were the very institutions that are supposed to
safeguard security and democracy: the military, the police and political
parties like the PDI-P. He immediately started making concessions to them,
hoping these concessions would win him sufficient stability to push through
reforms in other areas: tackling the oil mafia, the illegal logging industry,
and foreign threats while improving the social security net. These concessions
are Jokowi’s gamble.
In November
2014, President Jokowi approved military plans to build two new army commands:
one in Papua and the other in Sulawesi. Weeks later, he announced an 18% increase in
the annual police budget. In January, he nominated
Budi Gunawan as Indonesia’s new national police chief.
Nominating Gunawan
seemed aimed at pleasing the PDIP and senior police rather than pleasing the
public, as Gunawan was under investigation for corruption. When Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission questioned the nomination of
Gunawan, Jokowi stood by while the police force brought trumped up charges
against the Corruption Eradication Commission’s leaders and had them replaced
with cronies.
While courting his new ‘friends’, Jokowi
also began to choose his enemies. By November 2014, he was taking steps against
Indonesia’s powerful oil mafia. He cut government subsidies for gasoline and
diesel, which mafia had often sold abroad, and he established an “anti-energy
mafia committee” chaired by respected academic Faisal Basri. He was also taking on the illegal logging industry, imposing a six-month moratorium on the issuance
of all forest-exploitation permits. At the same time, Jokowi was identifying new
foreign adversaries and taking them on. He was burning encroaching fishing
vessels and re-activating the death penalty for international drug smugglers. Jokowi
also took on opposition
parties, who
said his health cards and smart cards to expand social welfare were
insufficiently explained and unclearly financed.
Jokowi in recent
months has remained consistent with his choice of enemies. In May 2015, his
anti-energy mafia committee succeeded in disbanding
three corrupt government institutions: Pertamina Energy Trading Limited
(PETRAL) and two of its subsidiaries. In the same month,
Jokowi renewed the moratorium on granting logging concessions. After executing six drug smugglers, including five foreigners, in January 2015,
Jokowi’s government went ahead with executing eight more, including seven foreigners,
in April 2015.
Jokowi in
recent months has also remained consistent with his choice of friends. He
allowed the widely distrusted Budi Gunawan to be appointed as deputy police
chief, while the position of police chief went to Badrodin Haiti, a man whose
corruption history was almost as shady as Budi Gunawan’s. He even stood by while the corrupt national police asserted their right to
‘help’ select new commissioners for the Corruption Eradication Commission and
while the chief of detectives refused to give a wealth report to the Corruption
Eradication Commission. These concessions have allowed his relationship with PDIP and senior police to
remain on manageable terms.
Jokowi’s
recent concessions to the military are an attempt to befriend an institution
that has played a role in the early departures of two previous civilian
presidents, Habibie in 1999 and Wahid in 2001. These concessions are also an
attempt to empower the military as a counterbalance to the increasingly
arrogant police force.
Through
this acquiescent approach, Jokowi is not unlike his party matron, former
president Megawati, who also made huge concessions to the military to help
stabilize her presidency. And when Megawati established the Corruption Eradication Commission in 2003,
she kept the police happy by appointing a crony former police officer, Taufiequrahman
Ruki, as one of its leaders. To placate the police, Jokowi has brought Ruki
back as a leader of the Corruption Eradication Commission in 2015.
So here’s
the gamble. By allowing the resurgence of the police force and military as
major players in Indonesian politics, and making concessions to powerful
parliamentary groups like PDIP, can Jokowi buy enough peace to pass through
reforms in other areas? Environmental groups have expressed doubts about
Jokowi’s ability to protect forests. Earlier this year, they noted that while rates
of illegal logging have declined steadily in recent years, the legalised
conversion of forests to plantations for palm oil has gone through the roof.They
aren’t feeling very safe either, since one environmental activist was murdered
in Jambi province in March 2015 and another in Jakarta in May 2015. The oil
mafia does not seem too concerned at this stage about Jokowi’s anti-energy mafia committee. Jokowi’s anti-energy
mafia committee can only be considered effective once the oil mafia, through its proxies in the
national parliament and in other institutions, begins to fight back.
Other reforms are having mixed success. The
rear-guard action against foreign threats has taken unexpected twists. A recent
attempt to force all expatriates to pass a Bahasa Indonesia proficiency test
was only abandoned after protest. A decision to ban transactions and invoicing
in US dollars is scheduled to come into effect on 1 July 2015 but its impact on
Indonesia’s economy may not be positive.The most positive reform has been the introduction of health cards and smart
cards to improve access to health and social welfare services for the poor.
Distribution has accelerated in recent months after the Indonesian parliament
passed Jokowi’s budget in January 2015.
No civilian president has ever served out a
full five-year term in Indonesia. Jokowi, by acquiescing to powerful
institutions, may be the first. He is currently on track for a legacy of
improved social services for the very poor, and that’s a huge step. But will
Jokowi’s era of Megawati-inspired ‘stability’ only be achieved through steps
backwards in law enforcement, environmental protection, international relations
and Indonesian democracy?
Warren Doull is a pseudonym. Warren worked for UNTAET in Timor-Leste in 2001-2002 and has also lived and worked extensively in Indonesia.
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