The Presidential elections in Indonesia – though mired in controversy as they may be – are over, with the winner… and… NEWWWWWW President of the nation being declared to be a humble, plain clothed man by the name of Joko Widodo, a man affectionately referred to by his nickname “Jokowi.” Widodo, the current Governor of Jakarta, defeated opponent Prabowo Subianto after attaining 53% of the vote. This, despite Subianto accusing Widodo of electoral fraud, which recounts have subsequently proven to be the entirely baseless claims of a sore loser.
Widodo is a new breed of leader in Indonesia. A man who grew up in the slums, forced to work his way through Primary School and ultimately leave formal education to enter the workplace full time at merely 12 years old, Widodo is the first democratically elected President of Indonesia who comes from neither the Military, nor the political elite.
Widodo’s rise to power in Indonesia has been rather meteoric, and his popularity is largely based on him seemingly being a genuine human being who actually cares about the people he represents. Fancy that, right?
He is largely seen as being a “clean” politician, in a field otherwise rife with corruption. During his short tenure as the Governor of Jakarta, he has worked hard to stamp out political corruption, which is seen as being rife among the Indonesian political circles, and he has taken active steps to remove its influence on regular people. Welfare payments in Jakarta, for example, are now issued on electronic gift cards which allow people to pay for health care and education directly, ensuring government officials cannot take a slice of that money off the top.
In addition, Widodo’s greatest accomplishments whilst in Jakarta were to address issues of traffic, attempt to curtail the impact of flooding on the city, and to jump-start a sorely needed mass-transit rail system.
One other curious factor about Joko is that the man is a big fan of heavy metal music, often touting his love for bands such as Metallica, Napalm Death or Led Zeppelin. In fact at one Metallica bassist Robert Truijilo sent Widodo a signed bass guitar as a gift, which Indonesian Government officials subsequently took off him claiming it to be a bribe of some sort.
Though Widodo might seem on paper to be a kind, caring man of the people, he’s acutely tuned in to international relations, and isn’t really happy with us. He too felt stung and betrayed by that whole “we’ve been wire tapping them for YEARS” thing that sort of came to light a few months ago, and that Australia has shown a lack of trust in Indonesia, specifically citing the Abbott Government’s policy on asylum seekers.
On behalf of all Australians who aren’t spying jerks, we’re sorry, Jakowi. I hope we can still be friends.
Photo: Bay Ismoyo via Getty Images.
