Indonesia’s president overcomes his slow start with policy successes
Bloomberg News
Joko Widodo won the Indonesian presidency in 2014 by campaigning as a man of the people who could tackle graft and stand up to the political establishment.
Expectations soon soured as Mr. Widodo, known as Jokowi, struggled to control his government and break free of the very elites he initially outmaneuvered, including former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, who chairs his ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P. With his agenda languishing, markets noticed — the rupiah fell nearly 12 percent in his first year after taking office.
Nearly two years later, Mr. Widodo has notched up several policy wins, gotten his pick through for national police chief and is sounding tough on terrorism and against neighbors over territory, including China. Last month, Indonesia’s navy detained a Chinese boat near the Natuna Islands, arresting seven fishermen after firing warning shots into the air.
“We probably have to separate out the political from the economics, but politically he has really in quite an impressive way consolidated his position in the last year,” said Greg Fealy, an associate professor at the Australian National University. Since a Cabinet reshuffle in August, Mr. Widodo has been “systematically distancing himself” from Mr. Megawati.
“He has much more authority, he has a far greater ability to get things done and he’s behaving more like the president that a lot of us expected that he would be,” Mr. Fealy said. Still, his success “is highly contingent on the economy continuing to do well and infrastructure projects remaining on time.”
In June, lawmakers passed a bill for a controversial tax amnesty that lasts until March 2017 and which the central bank says will result in 560 trillion rupiah ($43 billion) of inflows over an unspecified period. The funds are needed to finance Mr. Widodo’s ambitious infrastructure agenda which includes a pledge to build ports, roads and railways to spur growth in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy to 7 percent by the end of his term.
Mr. Widodo needs hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure in his first term, according to the Public Works Ministry.
Another public relations win came last week after security forces announced they had killed the country’s most wanted militant, Santoso. Long a thorn in the side of authorities, Santoso, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, was the leader of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen and declared allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2014.