The president of Indonesia suddenly seems vulnerable
The president of Indonesia suddenly seems vulnerable
Indonesian President Joko Widodo was rising in a wave of popularity a few months ago, and most experts and pollsters predicted that he would easily win a second five-year term in the presidential elections next April. Today, however, it seems increasingly vulnerable due to a slowdown in economic growth. That has led the president to backtrack on reforms and appease conservative Muslim voters, movements that may have worsened his situation.
Mr. Widodo's signature policies during the four years of his presidency include deregulation, e-government, health care and education subsidies for the poor, and a massive increase in infrastructure spending. The emphasis on infrastructure will help reduce long-term regional inequality, but at the cost of immediate economic returns. He won praise not only from Indonesians but also from credit rating agencies and international institutions such as the World Bank.
Economic growth has stagnated by just over 5% due in part to austerity measures, and recent national surveys show that more than 30% of voters have not decided which candidate to support. The main challenger, Prabowo Subianto, a retired general who ran in 2014 and lost by six points, is slowly rising in popularity. That is causing consternation inside Mr. Widodo's camp.
The president's vulnerability helps explain his decision last month to select Ma'ruf Amin, a hard-line Islamist, as his running mate. The election surprised most Indonesians, but behind it there was a cold political calculation.
By putting a conservative cleric on his ticket, Widodo tried to prevent the opposition from questioning his own religious credentials, as he did in the 2014 presidential election. Mr. Widodo also hopes that Mr. Amin will convince pious voters to to support your ticket.
But those gains are unlikely to materialize, and the election could even cost Mr. Widodo votes. Islamists are likely to question the president's sincerity, while moderate voters, the overwhelming majority, will be dissuaded by the risk of Mr. Amin having a say in politics as vice president.
The moderate majority has good reasons to worry. Mr. Amin, a 75-year-old Islamic scholar, heads Indonesia's Ulama Council, or MUI, and occupies a leading position within Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest Muslim organization. He has a long history as an advocate of sectarian agendas, including the imposition of Shariah.
Mr. Amin has helped to boost the influence of the Islamists in all the main parties. He has called the "deviant" from Ahmadiyah and the Shia Muslims and has supported campaigns to restrict their activities. He pushed for limits on the construction of places of worship for minority religions.
As head of the MUI in 2016, Mr. Amin led a protest campaign against the popular ethnically Chinese governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama. He accused Mr. Basuki, a Christian, of blaspheming Islam when he said at a campaign rally that the Koran did not forbid Muslims to vote for non-Muslim candidates. A court removed the governor from office and sentenced him to two years in prison.
Mr. Basuki was the protege of Mr. Widodo, serving as deputy when he was the governor of Jakarta and continued his reforms. The president's new alliance undermines his popularity among Mr. Basuki's admirers, as well as ethnic, Chinese and Christian communities.
Meanwhile, Mr. Prabowo made the decision to run with Sandiaga Uno, a 49-year-old businessman turned politician. Mr. One perfectly compensates for the harsh exterior of the former general and the lack of appeal with the younger voters.
Mr. Uno's youth credentials have not been lost on Mr. Widodo. Beginning not long after the entrepreneur joined the race, the president began to try to present himself as a "cool" politician. In a strange video posted for his campaign, a man who looks like Mr. Widodo (actually a Thai actor) performs risky stunts on motorcycles. At a recent meeting of the World Economic Forum in Hanoi, Mr. Widodo discussed the trade by analogy with a recent film from "The Avengers."
Mr. Widodo can be an expert in the use of media to connect with voters, but the challenges he faces can not be solved with dazzling marketing. Rather, the Indonesian presidential elections of 2019 will revolve around the economic slowdown.
The country's mobile currency is the Achido heel of Widodo. The rupee has fallen to levels not seen since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, and with the Federal Reserve likely to continue raising interest rates in the short term, there is no relief in sight. The anxieties over President Trump's trade wars will also continue to cause emerging economies with large current account deficits like Indonesia to suffer further downward pressure on their currencies.
Mr. Widodo's weakness on the economic front has given the Prabowo-Uno ticket a great opportunity, and his campaign team is focusing on bread and butter issues. If inflation begins to take hold, undecided voters may decide to leave behind their loyalty to Mr. Prabowo.
Mr. Widodo's chances of winning a second term will improve if he takes bolder reform measures. First, it needs to improve the investment climate, especially for direct foreign investors. South Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese companies are looking to the south as they begin to reduce their investments in China as a result of the trade war between the United States and China. Vietnam, which has a friendlier investment climate than Indonesia, has benefited most from this trend. And Mr. Widodo needs to stabilize the rupee to reduce inflation, particularly for food, because this has the biggest impact on voter sentiment.
Mr. Ramli is a former Minister of Finance of Indonesia, Minister Coordinator of Economics and Minister Coordinator of Maritime Affairs.
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