Joko Widodo

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    What Joko Widodo Achieved as President

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    Joko Widodo rose from a slum to the presidency. As his term ends, he is being accused of undermining the democracy that made that possible.The words “emergency warning” galvanized protesters in Indonesia in August. It was a rallying cry to protect the world’s third-largest democracy, which broke free from dictatorship less than 30 years ago. Thousands of protesters took to the streets. Some stormed the gates of Parliament, tearing one down in fury.The threat, as they saw it, was from their elected leader, President Joko Widodo.In his two terms in office, Mr. Joko, who steps down on Sunday, has transformed Indonesia, virtually eradicating extreme poverty in the sprawling archipelago, where about 280 million people live. But many believe he has also tried to bend the laws to install a political dynasty, undercutting the very democracy that let him become the country’s first president who was not from the military or the long-established political elite.Last year, critics say, Mr. Joko — widely known to Indonesians as Jokowi — engineered a Constitutional Court ruling that let his 36-year-old son run for vice president. The son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, was elected in February alongside Mr. Joko’s choice to succeed him as president, Prabowo Subianto, a former defense minister and general who has been linked to human rights abuses. In August, Mr. Joko’s allies attempted another maneuver to get his 29-year-old son, Kaesang Pangarep, on a ballot for political office. Infuriated Indonesians saw it as another about-face from Mr. Joko, who once declared, “Becoming a president does not mean channeling power to my children.”Thousands of protesters took to the streets in August, enraged by a plan to revise a law that would allow the younger son of Mr. Joko to run in local elections next month.Timur Matahari/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThousands of protesters gathered outside the Parliament and Constitutional Court in Jakarta, the capital. Mr. Joko was subjected to very personal attacks, as social media users cursed him by using his birth name, Mulyono. (Mr. Joko was a sickly child whose parents renamed him in hopes of better health; calling him Mulyono was tantamount to casting a hex.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Scandal of the Indonesian Leader’s Son and the Private Jet

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      It was a major blow to the Everyman image cultivated by President Joko Widodo, who is stepping down on Sunday.At first glance, it looked like so many other photos posted on social media, the kind taken by excited travelers en route. The wing of a plane, juxtaposed against fluffy white clouds, with the sun streaming through. The caption read: “U.S.A. here we go.”On board that August flight from Jakarta to Los Angeles were Kaesang Pangarep, the younger son of President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, and Mr. Kaesang’s wife, Erina Gudono. Details of the trip trickled out on Ms. Erina’s social media accounts: a $1,500 stroller for their soon-to-be-born baby and a $25 lobster roll for lunch. Her posts were seen as tone deaf and led to an uproar at home because most Indonesians cannot afford luxury items.But what made many furious was the fact that the couple traveled on a private jet. It was the antithesis of the Everyman image Mr. Joko has long projected. The plane was linked to Shopee, the operator of an online mall. The company had planned to construct a new building in the city of Solo, where Mr. Joko began his political career and where until recently the mayor was his older son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka.“If Kaesang wasn’t the mayor’s brother who had signed an agreement with Shopee, would he really have been able to fly on Shopee’s private jet?” said Boyamin Saiman, the coordinator of the Indonesian Anti-Corruption Community, a watchdog group, which filed a complaint over the matter.Mr. Kaesang has denied wrongdoing, saying he “hitchhiked” on a friend’s plane while not disclosing who the friend is.The nation’s graft-fighting body, the Corruption Eradication Commission, is now investigating whether the flight constituted a bribe. The probe is still undergoing an “internal administration process,” according to a spokesman from the commission. It’s unclear who owns the jet now, but it was once the property of Garena Online, which has the same corporate parent as Shopee: Singapore-based SEA Limited. Garena did not respond to a request for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ex-General Accused of Rights Abuses Wins Indonesia Election

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      The official result confirmed projections made after last month’s vote, which raised concerns about the vibrancy of the country’s democracy.The NewsA feared former general won last month’s presidential election in Indonesia, official results released on Wednesday showed, confirming unofficial projections.That candidate, Prabowo Subianto, who is now Indonesia’s defense minister, garnered 58.6 percent of the vote, according to the final tally by the General Election Commission.The result means that Mr. Prabowo, who was placed under a visa blacklist by the United States for about two decades over human rights abuses, won the election outright, avoiding a runoff with the second-place candidate.Although the official count is over, the process for Mr. Prabowo to be officially declared president-elect could be a protracted one. His opponents — Anies Baswedan, who had 24.9 percent of the vote, and Ganjar Pranowo, who took 16.5 percent — have said they plan to challenge the result.They accuse the outgoing president, Joko Widodo, of improperly influencing the election and claim widespread irregularities during the Feb. 14 vote. They have not provided proof of election-day impropriety but said they had evidence to prove their claims in court.Mr. Prabowo’s representatives reject these claims, noting that nearly every poll before the election showed him as the front-runner.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What is Joko Widodo’s Role in Indonesia’s Election?

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      Today’s vote is seen as a referendum on President Joko Widodo, who focused on economic growth but eventually curtailed liberties, critics say.More than 100 million people are voting on Wednesday in one of the biggest elections in the world. The contest for the top prize — the presidency of Indonesia — is a three-way race.But looming large is someone not on the ballot.That person is Joko Widodo, the incumbent president, who is not allowed to seek a third five-year term and will step down in October. A decade after Mr. Joko presented himself as a down-to-earth reformer and won office, he remains incredibly popular.Many of his supporters say that he has largely delivered on his promise of putting Indonesia on the path to becoming a rich country in the coming decades, with ambitious infrastructure and welfare projects like the plan to build a new capital city and a universal health system.At the same time, Mr. Joko has also overseen what critics describe as the regression of civil liberties. He has stripped down the powers of an anti-corruption agency, rammed through a contentious labor law and, more recently, appeared to engineer the placement of one of his sons on the ballot for vice president.Mr. Joko appears to be backing Mr. Prabowo, a former general who has been accused of rights abuses. Ulet Ifansasti for The New York TimesMaking matters worse, critics say, is the presidential hopeful he appears to be backing: Prabowo Subianto, a former general who was once a rival of Mr. Joko and who is accused of committing human rights abuses when Indonesia was a dictatorship. Mr. Prabowo, whose running mate is Mr. Joko’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, has been ahead in the polls.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In New Law, Indonesia Criminalizes Sex Outside of Marriage

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      Parliament also approved a law that criminalizes criticism of the government, delivering a blow to the country’s progressive reputation.Indonesia has long been known as a widely tolerant nation at the forefront of establishing democratic reforms throughout Southeast Asia. That progressive reputation took a hit on Tuesday when Parliament cleared a sweeping overhaul of the country’s criminal code.According to the new rules, sex outside of marriage is now illegal in Indonesia, as is defamation of the president. The overhaul also sharply expanded laws against blasphemy in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country. Opponents said the rules posed significant risks to religious minorities by outlawing extramarital sex and tacitly targeting critics of Islam. Extramarital sex criminalization also targets the L.G.B.T. community, as gay marriage is illegal in Indonesia. The new laws could also curtail freedom of expression and assembly.The new laws are almost certain to revive a debate around democratic backsliding in the nation of 276 million. After the fall of the Indonesian dictator Suharto in 1998, the country had prided itself as a thriving democracy. Most Indonesians held fairly relaxed views about homosexuality, which was never officially banned.But in recent years, conservative Islam has gained ground in the country, and now some fear its influence is growing, even as its ranks remain a minority in Parliament. In the lead-up to the next presidential election in 2024, few officials appear willing to upset the religious right, which helped paved the way for Tuesday’s overhaul of the criminal code.“It is a very significant encroachment on rights and liberties in Indonesia,” said Tim Lindsey, director of the Center for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne. Critics warned that the new rules, which also apply to foreigners, will make Indonesia less appealing to investors, tourists and students.Muhamad Isnur, chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, said the laws run “contrary to international human rights norms. We are in a new paradigm,” he said.The bill was approved unanimously in Parliament on Tuesday. The government has tried for decades to overhaul the law but has never succeeded. In 2019, it tried to pass a similar draft law, but President Joko Widodo shelved it after tens of thousands of young people protested in the streets, arguing that the law threatened their civil liberties. This time, activists said they were blindsided when lawmakers suddenly announced on Nov. 30 that they were handing a draft to Parliament to ratify, giving the activists very little time to organize demonstrations.Indonesia officials said they had engaged in monthslong conversations with several human rights groups before submitting the new draft. The lawmakers said they added revisions based on feedback, such as stating that blasphemy does not only apply to religion but all belief systems. Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, Indonesia’s deputy minister of law and human rights, said that the government tried to accommodate as many parties as possible, but acknowledged that the overhaul “won’t satisfy everyone.”“If there are citizens who feel that their constitutional rights have been violated, the door of the constitutional court is wide open for that,” Mr. Edward told reporters last month. The laws, which are set to take effect after three years, will likely be challenged in the country’s Constitutional Court. On Tuesday, there were calls for protests outside Parliament. (The new rules state that people who demonstrate without a permit can also be penalized.)Officials say upgrading the existing criminal code, which dates back to 1918 when Indonesia was a Dutch colony, was long overdue. Among the raft of new laws, penalties around consensual sex outside marriage have drawn the most criticism. According to the revisions, unmarried couples who live together could be jailed for six months or face a maximum fine of 10 million rupiah ($710)..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Though the penalties apply to foreigners, the new law states that the police can only make an arrest after a report is filed by a close family member, such as a parent, spouse or child, making it extremely unlikely that foreigners would be prosecuted, Mr. Lindsey said. “But gay and lesbian Indonesians, who, of course, are couples and they can’t be married, they are completely exposed.”Police have previously arrested dozens of gay men for violating an anti-pornography law, but now, all gay couples who live together are subject to possible arrest.The push for the overhaul was backed by Vice President Ma’ruf Amin, an Islamic cleric and the former chair of the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top body for Islamic scholars, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the details of private conversations. Mr. Ma’ruf had previously called for “stern regulations” on the sexual activities of homosexuals.In a reversal, lawmakers on Tuesday reinstated a provision making it illegal to attack “the honor or dignity” of both Indonesia’s president and vice president, a rule that was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2006. In recent years, however, tolerance for such criticism has waned. Last year, the authorities arrested an artist who created a mural criticizing Mr. Joko, and activists say they have been harassed and charged with defamation for speaking up on rights abuses.Mr. Joko — known as a moderate, secular leader — has spoken out repeatedly against intolerant views in his country. In an interview with The New York Times last month, he said Indonesia has a vibrant democracy with frequent peaceful protests outside the presidential palace. “Even today, everyone can criticize the president and the government,” Mr. Joko said, speaking before the Group of 20 summit in Bali last month. “I believe that Indonesia’s democracy is moving on the right track.”Andreas Harsono, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said that the laws would give the police greater opportunities to extort bribes, and lead to more corruption. Politicians would also have more excuses to target political opponents, he added. “The danger of oppressive laws is not that they will be broadly applied — no, they won’t be — it is that they provide an avenue for selective enforcement,” Mr. Harsono said.The new penal code expands the country’s blasphemy law from one to six provisions, stating for the first time that apostasy — anyone who “persuades someone to be a nonbeliever” — can be charged as a criminal offense.Religious minorities are most at risk of running afoul of this law. Roughly 87 percent of Indonesians are Muslim, while the rest are Christian, Catholic, Hindu and Buddhist. According to Mr. Harsono, the use of the blasphemy law has been most commonly used against people who have criticized Islam.In 2017, former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian and an ally of Mr. Joko, was sentenced to two years in prison on blasphemy charges after he was accused of insulting Islam by jokingly referring to a verse in the Quran in a campaign speech.Willy Aditya, a lawmaker from the left-leaning NasDem party, rejected claims that Indonesia was “turning into an Islamic country” but said that the new law was written based on emotion, not research. The law shows that the officials have failed to distinguish the difference between public and private affairs, he said, “which is the most elementary thing in democracy.”Muktita Suhartono More

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      COVID-19: What Indonesia Can Learn From South Korea and Taiwan

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      As the coronavirus spreads fast in Indonesia, experts believe that the country will become Asia’s new epicenter. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has been criticized for not implementing a nationwide lockdown. Yet such measures would not be a silver bullet to contain COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Other countries such as South Korea […] More