Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

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Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era: Repressive Pluralism,

Dynasticism and the Overbearing State

Greg Fealy

To cite this article: Greg Fealy (2020) Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era: Repressive Pluralism,
Dynasticism and the Overbearing State, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 56:3,
301-323, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2020.1846482

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 Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2020: 301–323

Indonesian Politics in 2020

JOKOWI IN THE COVID-19 ERA: REPRESSIVE PLURALISM,

DYNASTICISM AND THE OVERBEARING STATE

Greg Fealy*
The Australian National University

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown President Joko Widodo’s second-term plans into
disarray. Jokowi’s aspiration for dramatically accelerated development between 2019
and 2024 to secure his legacy as a transformative president now appears unachiev-
able. As he has grappled with managing the pandemic and salvaging key parts of
his agenda, he has consistently prioritised the economy over public health, and has
also abandoned commitments to uphold or strengthen an array of political and civil
rights that are crucial to the quality of Indonesian democracy. He has allowed the
military and intelligence services to greatly expand their role in public life, and his
government has, in the name of defending Indonesian pluralism, initiated discrimi-
natory measures against sections of the Islamist community, which the government
sees as sectarian and intolerant. The president’s reformist credentials have also been
dented by Jokowi’s decision to support the nominations of his son and son-in-law in
mayoral elections in two major cities, bringing accusations of dynasticism and elitism.

Keywords: repressive pluralism, dynasticism, illiberalism, democratic regression, anti-

Islamism, securitisation, autocratising, Pancasila, Covid-19, coronavirus
JEL classifications: D72, D73, K42

INTRODUCTION
As President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) marks the first year of his final five-year term,
observers have been searching for signs of whether the second half of his presi-
dency will be markedly different from the first. He is aware that his predecessor,
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was widely judged to have achieved little in his
second term, and he is determined not to repeat this. Ever impatient and ever
ambitious, Jokowi began his second term last year wanting not just to consolidate
the attainments of his first term but to far exceed them by launching much bolder,
more visionary projects than he had between 2014 and 2019. He wanted to leave

* Numerous colleagues have assisted me in preparing this article, both by generously shar-
ing information and by commenting upon my analysis. Particular thanks are due to Marcus
Mietzner, Edward Aspinall, Douglas Ramage, Firman Noor, Suhadi, Ken Ward, Burhanuddin
Muhtadi, Colum Graham and Margaret Scott, along with a number of informants who have
asked that their names be withheld. Any errors in the text are my responsibility alone.

ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/18/000301-323 © 2020 ANU Indonesia Project

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2020.1846482
302 Greg Fealy

a monumental legacy and be remembered as a great builder of Indonesia, at least

the equal of President Soeharto (1966–98), upon whom he partly models himself
(Warburton 2016). The crowning achievement was to be the construction of a new
capital city in East Kalimantan, but he had other goals as well, including continu-
ing infrastructure development, expanding the industrial and technological sectors,
improving skills and human capital through better education and training, and
raising research and innovation capacity. In short, he wanted the 2019–24 period
to be one of transformation.
When the Covid-19 pandemic broke in Indonesia in March 2020, it not only
brought a potentially devastating public health crisis but also threatened to shatter
Jokowi’s grand plans. Achieving his second-term objectives during stable economic
conditions would have been challenging enough; doing so in a time of recession
and upheaval will be near impossible.
The combination of the Covid-19 crisis and his being a final-term president
appears to have sharply concentrated his mind, leading him to discard many
aspects of his broader social and political reform agenda and focus single-mindedly
on what is most important to him: the economy and development. Many scholars
have noted Jokowi’s thin and declining commitment to rights and democratisation
goals, often commenting that he supported them only so long as they cost him little
political capital and did not adversely affect his economic plans (Warburton 2016;
Power 2018). But now, with the economy in recession and the pandemic worsening,
he has cast off most of his remaining progressive policies with seemingly scant
regret. Shorn of the nominally liberal outer layers of his political identity, Jokowi’s
core preoccupations with material prosperity and advancement are now in clear
view. Moreover, far from lowering expectations of what is achievable during his
second term, Jokowi has doubled down, appearing to convince himself that the
pandemic is a unique opportunity to bring about sweeping change and realise
his dream of a powerful and highly developed Indonesia. This can be seen in
his constant exhortations for Indonesians to be disciplined, to take on new, more
productive mindsets and habits, and to not be downcast by the current crisis but
to rise above it and behold the nation’s glimmering prospects. Jokowi’s determina-
tion is also evident in his prioritising of economic recovery over public health, his
mobilisation of the military to enforce Covid-19 protocols, his seeming indiffer-
ence to the growing intimidation of government critics by state agencies and his
supporters, and his willingness to allow extra-legal means to suppress Islamism.
Most of these tendencies have been apparent for several years, but they are now
far more pronounced as he strives to impel Indonesians to fulfil their potential, as
he sees it, and to secure his place in history as a great president.
One aspect of Jokowi’s behaviour in the past year has been new and unexpected:
a tendancy towards dynasticism. Jokowi’s rapid rise from local to national political
leader was due in no small measure to a perception that he embodied many of the
principles of the Reformasi, including a disdain for the sorts of nepotistic practices
that had defined the last decade of the Soeharto era and that have persisted among
much of the political elite since then. Jokowi has been asked repeatedly whether
he wants his children to follow him into politics and has always responded indif-
ferently. And yet, over the past year, his son and son-in-law have launched their
political careers with the blessing and strong behind-the-scenes support of the
president. Refusing to use one’s position to advance the prospects of one’s relatives
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 303

has proved to be another expendable principle for Jokowi as he has set about
ensuring his family’s intergenerational entrenchment. Quite possibly, this shift in
stance has been influenced by the crisis and his own sense that he needs to have
an ongoing national role after his presidency.
This article is divided into four sections. The first examines Jokowi’s response to
the pandemic, charting changes in his attitudes and policies. The second analyses
the government’s growing securitisation approach to managing public health, and
social and political problems, with particular attention given to the mobilisation
of the military, the rising police penetration of civilian positions and the greater
influence of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN). The third section explores the
Jokowi government’s efforts to suppress and marginalise Islamist groups in the
name of safeguarding Indonesia’s pluralist values. Finally, Jokowi’s dynasticism
and its connection to manoeuvring for the 2024 general and presidential elections
will be considered. The article concludes by arguing that Covid-19 and its political
fallout have accelerated Indonesia’s trend towards democratic regression.

JOKOWI’S COVID-19 RESPONSE

Covid-19 has posed the severest challenge of Jokowi’s presidency. It has also tested
Indonesia’s capacity as a state to deal with the pandemic and its public health
and economic consequences. I will briefly describe the public health crisis before
concentrating on Jokowi’s own response and the consequences for Indonesia’s
democracy.
As of 6 October 2020, more than 311,000 Indonesians had contracted Covid-19,
11,374 had died from the virus and 236,437 had recovered (Worldometer 2020).
Both the infection and death rates have been climbing steeply since late August,
suggesting that the spread of the virus is increasingly out of control. All provinces
now have infections, and some 70 districts are red zones, meaning they are areas
of high infection risk (Azanella 2020). The most seriously affected province has
been Jakarta, where infection rates in September exceeded 1,500 new cases per day,
forcing the Jakarta governor, Anies Baswedan, to reimpose large-scale social restric-
tions (PSBBs) on movement and gatherings on 14 September. Especially alarming
for the city was that the rate of positive tests had leapt from 5% in June to 12.2% in
early September, pointing to the accelerating spread within the community (Koran
Tempo 2020j). Other badly affected provinces included West Java, East Java, Central
Java, Bali and South Kalimantan. Numerous authorities believe that the real infec-
tion rate is much higher than the official rate, perhaps between four and ten times
greater, suggesting that well over one million people have the virus.
Many epidemiologists and other public health experts have been highly criti-
cal of the government’s policies. They claim that its public announcements have
been confusing, with different ministers often making contradictory or unsci-
entific claims; that mitigation measures have been inadequate and inconsistent;
and that too much hope is being placed on the early availability and roll-out of
a vaccine (Cahya and Gorbiano 2020). In short, they argue that the government
has prioritised economic activity over public health, as evidenced by the compo-
sition of the National Economic Recovery and Covid-19 Response Team, which
was established in mid-July and has many more economists and businesspeople
than medical experts.
304 Greg Fealy

Jokowi’s own response to the crisis has varied over time, but his default posi-
tion has been to prefer the economy over public health. When the virus first began
spreading across Asia in January and February, the president was persuaded by his
health minister, Terawan Agus Putranto, and others, that Indonesia might escape
the infection. Terawan attributed the absence of Covid-19 to the prayerfulness
and good diet of Indonesians, while other ministers speculated that the popula-
tion’s racial characteristics had bestowed immunity or that Indonesia’s tropical
climate had inhibited infection (Pramudiarja 2020). In early February, Jokowi said,
‘Hopefully the virus will not happen in our country’, and one of his senior ministers
proclaimed that ‘Indonesia was the only big nation in Asia not to have the virus’
(CNN Indonesia 2020a). Several days later, a sceptical World Health Organization
expressed concern that Indonesia had recorded no cases, and urged more intensive
testing and preventative measures (CNN Indonesia 2020c). Jokowi did instruct his
ministers to put preventative measures in place, but they responded complacently,
and the government continued to talk up Indonesia as a safe destination for invest-
ment and tourism.
The threat of Covid-19 became a reality on 2 March when Indonesia recorded
its first cases. Within a month, almost 1,800 cases across 32 districts, and 117 deaths,
had been confirmed, with infection rates trending upwards (Idhom 2020). Jokowi
was caught between trying to slow the spread of the virus and trying to minimise
disruption to the economy. He compromised, introducing stricter public health
protocols—such as social distancing, hand-cleaning regimes, disinfection of com-
munal spaces and restrictions on public movement—while resisting lockdowns
where they would have heavy economic consequences or provoke social unrest.
He later admitted to withholding information on the seriousness of the pandemic
in order to avoid panic (Pangestika 2020). Particularly notable at this time was
the rising tension between the national government and regional administrations,
which were seeking stronger measures to control infection rates. The central
government forbade local governments from implementing lockdowns without
approval from the health ministry, which was slow to grant approval. This tardi-
ness was due not only to a determination to limit economic disruption but also to
Jokowi’s desire not to be outflanked on Covid-19 policy by provincial governors.
He seemed particularly irked by Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan, a political rival,
who consistently pressed for stronger mitigation measures. As Mietzner (forthcom-
ing) has convincingly argued, the government’s half-hearted approach to public
health during these first few months of the pandemic greatly reduced its chances
of containing the virus.
A new phase in the government’s Covid-19 response came in late May when,
after concerted lobbying from business groups, Jokowi resolved to ease restrictions
and revive economic activity as quickly as possible. Business leaders warned him
that significant sectors of the economy faced collapse, leading to massive unem-
ployment, if no relief was forthcoming. He soon after ordered generous economic
relief measures and announced what he called a ‘new normal’, in which citizens
would need to observe social distancing and sanitation protocols but could return
to work and resume their usual consumption activities (Cahya and Gorbiano 2020).
He declared that ‘until an effective vaccine is found, we [Indonesians] have to live
peacefully with Covid-19’ (Puspitasari and Florentin 2020).
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 305

The president’s most recent position, evident since July, has been one of bullish-
ness, seemingly based on his conviction that he has hit upon the right policy mix
to keep the pandemic under control without doing great harm to the economy. A
major source of his confidence has been comparative data suggesting that Indonesia
is much less affected than countries of equivalent population. In cabinet meetings
and palace discussions, Jokowi is said to refer constantly to the severity of India’s
and Brazil’s infection and mortality rates, comparing them to Indonesia’s much
lower rates. He told governors in mid-July that growth would have dropped by
17% if he had put the country into a full and extended lockdown, and he said that
Indonesia was more successful in dealing with Covid-19 than the United States,
Britain, India and Brazil (Sutrisno 2020).
More recently, Jokowi has continued to display vaulting optimism about
Indonesia’s ability to bounce back from the crisis. When addressing the People’s
Consultative Assembly (MPR) in mid-August, he likened Covid-19 to a ‘computer
crash’ that would require Indonesia ‘to reboot its economy’ but said this would
‘turn the crisis into an opportunity to make great leaps’. References to Indonesia’s
leaping forwards out of the pandemic have become frequent in his speeches. He
also told the MPR the following: ‘Our patterns of thinking and work ethic have
to change. Flexibility, speed and precision are very much needed. Efficiency, col-
laboration and technology usage have to be prioritised. National discipline and
national productivity must be raised.’ He went on to refer to the ‘transformation
of the economy’ from being ‘procedure-driven to results-driven’, from requiring
‘standard work to outstanding work’, and from involving ‘complicated, long pro-
cedures to smart shortcuts’ (Kumparan 2020e). In these words, we can see Jokowi’s
vision for an advanced Indonesia, but we can also sense his frustration, and perhaps
despair, that the country is not already an advanced one. His speech also makes
clear that he has come to view the deep disruption to daily life caused by Covid-19
as a precious opportunity to hasten long-overdue reforms. Nonetheless, his opti-
mism appears fanciful, as if the deep structural and cultural problems that hinder
Indonesia’s economic development might be quickly cast aside, like a captive’s
shackles, liberating the nation to attain its rightful success.
Indonesia’s poor Covid-19 containment record points not only to questionable
policy-making since the start of the pandemic but also to deeper problems. To begin
with, Indonesia’s public health system is one of the most poorly resourced in the
Southeast Asian region. It has relatively low hospital and clinic funding, one of the
lowest ratios of doctors per head of population in the region, and high levels of cor-
ruption in health expenditure (Mietzner, forthcoming). All of this means that the
health system has limited capacity to cope with a crisis, as became evident in Jakarta
and Surabaya, where isolation wards and intensive care units quickly filled when
infection rates surged. Also notable is that knowledge of and respect for scientific
data and advice is limited in the current government. Multiple ministers have ped-
dled dubious remedies, such as the agriculture minister’s advocacy of eucalyptus
leaf necklaces and the research minister’s promotion of coconut oil supplements
(Firdaus and Ratcliffe 2020). Perhaps one of the most serious obstacles for Jokowi
has been the incompetence of Terawan. Since his early misadventures during the
Covid-19 crisis, he has seemingly lost the confidence of much of the medical profes-
sion and his own ministry, and has largely disappeared from public view.
306 Greg Fealy

SECURITISATION OF COVID-19 MEASURES AND PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION
An important aspect of Jokowi’s Covid-19 management strategy is the use of the
Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) and the State Intelligence Agency (BIN). Many
governments across the world have mobilised their armed forces to assist the
police and civilian agencies in dealing with the pandemic. Given the magnitude
of the Covid-19 problem, this mobilisation has been broadly considered justifiable.
But in the Indonesian case, several aspects of Jokowi’s policy are distinctive: first,
his policy follows a trend throughout his presidency of widening the role of the
security apparatus, not only the military and the intelligence agency but also the
police; second, TNI has been granted powers to directly sanction civilians; third,
TNI and BIN have pursued roles in the production of anti-Covid-19 medicine and
Covid-19 testing, when they lack the expertise to do so. In pursuing such policies,
Jokowi is securitising the management of social and political problems beyond
what is required. Rather than seeing such problems as matters primarily for civilian
authorities, which may be assisted by TNI and BIN, the government has instead
designated them as ‘security’ threats, which therefore justify the use of extraor-
dinary measures by the state. The result of this securitisation process is that the
military, police and intelligence service have a wider scope for intervention and
influence in society than at any time since the early days of the Reformasi in the late
1990s. This is now a contributing factor in the declining quality of democratic life.
Jokowi’s deployment of TNI has been the most prominent aspect of his secu-
ritisation approach. He has reversed Yudhoyono’s policy of keeping the military
largely in the barracks and limiting its involvement in civilian affairs. Instead, he
has allowed the armed forces, especially the army, a much greater role in the com-
munity. This includes counterterrorism operations; public ideological campaigns
to promote the national doctrine of Pancasila; food distribution, infrastructure and
welfare activities in grassroots communities; and guarding of prisons.
During the pandemic, Jokowi’s use of the military has been taken to a new
level. In late May, as part of the ‘new normal’ campaign, some 340,000 military and
police personnel were mobilised to enforce the government’s Covid-19 protocols
across the country. This was taken further in early August when Jokowi issued
Presidential Instruction 6/2020, greatly broadening TNI’s Covid-19 role to include
mounting patrols in some 83,000 villages across the nation to ‘mentor’ the com-
munity on correct Covid-19 behaviour and dispense a vaccine when it becomes
available. Moreover, military personnel were given the authority to impose pun-
ishments on members of the public for breaching the protocols. These included
requiring errant citizens to sweep gutters, clean up rubbish or do push-ups in the
street (Kumparan 2020a). This amounted to a significant increase in TNI’s penetra-
tion into civilian domains, and many legal observers claimed that the government
was in breach of the 2004 TNI law, which states that the military’s role is to defend
the nation from external attack, not to ensure domestic security (Koran Tempo 2020h).
In addition, Jokowi has appointed senior TNI officers to a variety of ‘command
roles’ in Covid-19 operations. One of his first appointments was Lieutenant General
Doni Monardo to head the Covid-19 Response Acceleration Task Force. Doni sur-
prised officials by regularly attending Covid-19 coordination meetings in uniform.
More significant was the elevation of General Andika Perkasa, commander of the
army, to the position of deputy head of the Committee for Covid-19 Handling
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 307

and National Economic Recovery (Jakarta Post 2020b). Andika is well connected
politically, being the son-in-law of Abdullah Mahmud Hendropriyono, a powerful
retired general and intelligence boss, who is close to the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDIP) and its chair, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Andika is not the
only general with strong political ties. Kunto Arief Wibowo, the commander of
West Java’s Siliwangi division, is the son of former Soeharto vice-president Try
Sutrisno and the son-in-law of former defence minister Ryamizard Ryacudu. Also,
Maruli Simanjuntak, the commander of the Presidential Security Force of Indonesia,
is the son-in-law of Luhut Panjaitan, the coordinating minister of maritime and
investment affairs, and a trusted Jokowi advisor (Honna 2020).
Some commentators have accused Jokowi of returning Indonesia to the New
Order period when the military was a dominant political and social force. Long-
time TNI analyst Jun Honna has argued persuasively that this is not the case.
Honna contends that Jokowi is instrumentalising TNI because it makes him appear
a strong and resolute leader, and that the expansion of military functions provides
appointment opportunities for a growing number of middle-ranking officers who
are without substantive postings. The president is not seeking to return TNI as
a political force but rather to use the military to bolster his ability to implement
policies and regulations (Honna 2020).
Jokowi’s behaviour since mid-2020 has underscored Honna’s analysis. Jokowi
has repeatedly linked the involvement of the military to the need to instil public
discipline so that Covid-19 protocols are observed. Indeed, ‘discipline’ has become
the president’s mantra in recent months. When he announced the joint police–TNI
mobilisation, he said it was necessary to discipline society. Presidential Instruction
6/2020 was titled Maintaining Self-Discipline and Law Enforcement of Health
Protocols in the Prevention and Control of Covid-19, and contained multiple ref-
erences to TNI’s working with national agencies and regional governments to
ensure discipline. In Jokowi’s Independence Day speech, he exhorted Indonesians
to ‘increase discipline and national productivity’ so that the nation could progress
quickly. Erick Thohir, the executive chair of the Committee for Covid-19 Handling
and National Economic Recovery, elaborated further on the TNI–discipline nexus:
‘The task of TNI is to maximise the level of Covid-19 protocol discipline in society.
Discipline hopefully will safeguard society’ (Patnistik 2020). It is apparent that
Jokowi believes that soldiers will be much more effective than police and civilian
officials at enforcing the protocols, and that having community obedience as a
mitigation measure is critical to the success of reopening the economy without a
surge in infection rates. In addition, Jokowi undoubtedly feels that the military will
promptly obey his instructions, unlike so many parts of the bureaucracy, which
appear to have been wilfully dilatory or torpid in carrying out his instructions. In
June, the palace released a video of Jokowi angrily rebuking ministers for lack-
ing a sense of crisis and for responding tardily to Covid-19, adding that he might
reshuffle the cabinet to get better results (Jakarta Post 2020a).
Covid-19 is not the only area in which Jokowi is treating the military favourably.
In early July, he granted authority to the defence ministry to develop a 165,000-hec-
tare food estate in Central Kalimantan as part of the government’s efforts to ensure
national food supplies. Jokowi’s decision shocked many officials because peat-
land in Kalimantan had been deemed unsuitable for intensive food production,
and the defence minister, Prabowo Subianto, had wanted the food estate to be
308 Greg Fealy

situated in Papua (Anam 2020; Sulistyawati 2020). The president defended his
actions, saying that defending the nation was about not only procuring weapons
but also ensuring food resilience, ‘so we can produce whatever food needs we
have and to strengthen national defence, especially in food’. Similarly, the defence
ministry was allowed to sign a deal with US energy company ThorCon to build a
thorium reactor for power generation in Indonesia (CNN Indonesia 2020b). The
president also approved the establishment of a military reserve to assist TNI in
security matters and national development. Up to 25,000 reservists would get basic
military training and be available for not only wartime functions but also civilian
operations, such as working in the food estate, helping with disaster relief and
contributing to economic development (Purnomo 2020). The education ministry
later announced the commencement of university courses for students wishing to
undertake military reserve training, for which they could get academic credit. The
deputy defence minister, Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, confirmed that the reservists
would have an economic role, not just a security role (Yahya 2020).
Although Jokowi’s expansion of TNI’s role falls far short of a return to the
New Order, it nonetheless serves the military’s institutional interests while erod-
ing democracy. Since Soeharto’s downfall, removing TNI from civilian functions
and returning its focus to an external defence role has been a central element in
Reformasi discourses. To a large extent, this is captured in the 2004 TNI law, which
states that the military’s role does not include domestic security. But involvement
in Covid-19 operations helps TNI to maintain its extensive territorial command
(Koter) structure, which gives it a presence down to the village level across the
country and allows access to local sources of income and influence. TNI’s Covid-19
role normalises soldiers’ interacting extensively with the community and supports
the continuation of Koter and military grassroots engagement. Reformers argue
that maintaining this structure is inconsistent with an externally focused, profes-
sional military (Honna 2020). By favouring coercive military measures, Jokowi is
eschewing persuasive civil measures that could win public cooperation.
Aside from these pro-military policies, Jokowi has given preferment to the
police and Indonesia’s main intelligence body, BIN. He has appointed a record
number of police generals—more than 30 by mid-2020—to senior civilian positions
in government, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and independent state agencies,
such as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Former national police
chief Tito Karnavian was appointed home affairs minister, the first police officer
ever to hold this position. Another police general, Firli Bahuri, was appointed chair
of the KPK upon parliament’s recommendation. According to non-government
organisation KontraS, a total of 397 police officers are now in SOEs, up from 222
in 2017; more than 7% of all SOE commissioners now have police backgrounds
(Koran Tempo 2020i). Commentators have noted that many of these police generals
have been appointed to roles that lie far outside their expertise, calling into ques-
tion their competence to perform these roles. One common explanation for their
appointment is that Jokowi is rewarding them for their support during his first
term and particularly during the 2019 election campaign.
BIN has also done well under Jokowi. In March 2020, Jokowi instructed BIN to
‘take steps’ to manage Covid-19, but did not specify what they were to be. Over
the next few months, BIN began to directly involve itself in public health activities,
including rolling out mobile rapid-testing vans and jointly funding development
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 309

of a coronavirus medicine with the army and Airlangga University in Surabaya.

These measures attracted much adverse comment. BIN’s testing proved unreliable,
returning positive test results for dozens of people who were later confirmed to
have negative results. Also, its Covid-19 medicine was criticised for not having the
necessary approvals. Others noted that Law 17/2011 on State Intelligence stipulated
that BIN’s role was to detect, analyse and prevent threats to national security, not
to undertake a public health role (Majalah Tempo 2020).
In July, the president decreed that BIN would now answer directly to him rather
than to the coordinating minister for politics, law and security affairs, Mahfud
MD (Nashrullah 2020). BIN had long sought direct access to the president, and
the head of BIN, Budi Gunawan, a powerful former police general with close ties
to PDIP and Megawati, had bridled at answering to Mahfud, a law professor and
former chief justice of the Constitutional Court, who was known to cast a critical
eye over the reporting and activities of the agencies beneath him. Bypassing the
coordinating minister means less scrutiny of BIN within government and a greater
ability of Gunawan to influence Jokowi’s decisions on a wide range of political
and social issues. As with his stance on the police and the military, Jokowi is not
averse to asking the intelligence services to involve themselves in political affairs.
In early 2020, he requested that the police and BIN approach social organisations
and persuade them to support the government’s controversial omnibus bill, which
was under heated debate in parliament (Gorbiano 2020).
This greater involvement of the military, police and intelligence in social and
political affairs comes at a time when state intimidation of government critics has
reached the highest levels of the post-Soeharto period. Cyberattacks and trolling
of critics is now commonplace, leading to a significant squeezing of civic space.
The two most notorious examples were the attacks on Ravio Patra and Pandu
Riono. Ravio, a researcher and activist, was detained and interrogated by police
for 33 hours in April over accusations that he had used messaging app WhatsApp
to incite violence. He was released when evidence emerged that his social media
accounts had been hacked and the inflammatory messages had been posted by a
third party with the apparent aim of giving a pretext for his arrest. NGOs claimed
that the hacking was most likely the work of state agencies, as only they had
the technical capacity and political interest to undertake such an attack (Nurbaiti
2020). Similarly, Pandu, an epidemiologist from Universitas Indonesia who has
been a staunch critic of the government’s Covid-19 measures, had his social media
accounts hacked in August and controversial photos of him with women circulated
on his network (Koran Tempo 2020k). Many observers believe that state agencies are
increasingly resorting to cyber intimidation as a means of silencing dissent. It is
unclear whether Jokowi is aware of or even particularly interested in these attacks,
but he could certainly reduce or halt them were he of a mind to do so.

REPRESSIVE PLURALISM
There has been much debate among observers of Indonesian politics over the past
decade regarding the importance of ideology. Scholars such has Ufen (2008), Slater
(2004) and Aspinall and Berenschot (2019) have argued that the old ideological
streams (aliran) that dominated politics from the 1950s into the Soeharto period
have weakened considerably during the Reformasi period, and that personalities,
310 Greg Fealy

clientelism and intra-elite collusion are now larger factors in determining how the
electorate votes and how politicians behave. It is certainly the case that most major
parties now have significant overlap in their policy settings and that only a handful
of parties bother with detailed platforms based on a rigorous ideological exposition.
At the 2019 general and presidential elections, the debates between parties and can-
didates focused heavily on identity and the qualities of individual leaders. When
ideology did feature, the differences were more rhetorical than substantive. But,
as Fosatti (2019) has argued, ideological divergences regarding Islam remain a sig-
nificant factor in voter behaviour. His research shows that aliran continue to shape
the electoral inclinations of Indonesians and that voters with Islamist orientations
have different policy concerns and leadership preferences from non-Islamist voters.
Indonesia’s ideological divide on religion is not, however, purely about elec-
tions; it is increasingly a contest about what limits the state should impose on
Islamic discourses and organisations. According to Indonesian statutes, the only
banned ideology is communism. But during the past four years of Jokowi’s presi-
dency, the government, in concert with state agencies and an array of civil society
actors, has moved to restrict hard-line Islamic views, which they regard as posing
an existential threat to Indonesia’s tradition of diversity and tolerance. They are
doing so in the name of pluralism, arguing that Islamists imperil religious and
political freedoms and thus warrant suppression. This pluralist–Islamist cleavage
has become one of the most significant fault lines of the Reformasi era and is now
a critical site of contestation over the nature of Indonesian democracy. Are plural-
ists justified in using illiberal measures to combat the supposedly illiberal forces
of Islamism?
Exactly who and what the pluralists and Islamists are needs careful elaboration
before considering the repressive measures that are being undertaken. Pluralism
is generally defined as an acceptance that no one religion can be the sole source of
truth and that a state should acknowledge and accommodate a diversity of beliefs.
In the Indonesian context, this is often cast in terms of kebhinekaan (diversity), a
reference to the state motto of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity), and it
holds that the religiously neutral character of the 1945 Constitution is central to
Indonesia’s character. By contrast, Islamism refers to those groups and figures
who seek to bring Islamic law and principles formally into the public domain. In
practice, Islamists may pursue a wide variety of agendas, including advocating for
an Islamic state, demanding comprehensive sharia-isation of the legal system, and
publicly mobilising in perceived defence of Muslim rights and the glory of Islam.
Pluralists are adamant that no one religion should have pride of place in Indonesia,
ensuring that all Indonesians are equal regardless of faith. Islamists insist that their
religion should be privileged, not only because it is the faith of 88% of Indonesians
but also because of its deep historical roots in the archipelago. Pluralists dismiss and
sometimes condemn as divisive attempts to sharia-ise the constitution and statutes.
They object to mobilisation designed to force recognition of specific Muslim rights.
The range of groups in the pluralist category is broad. At its core are PDIP and
Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), as well as NU’s
political vehicle, the National Awakening Party (PKB)—both PDIP and NU see
themselves as representing the moral centre of the nation’s pluralist traditions.
Also included in this loose alliance are other mainstream parties such as Golkar,
the National Democrats (NasDem), Prabowo’s Great Indonesia Movement Party
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 311

(Gerindra), the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) and the United Development
Party (PPP). Supporting these parties and the broad thrust of anti-Islamism is a
variety of minority religious, ethnic and sexual communities and groups that feel
threatened by Islamist agendas and mobilisation.
Pluralists apply the term ‘Islamist’ to only a very specific section of what is
a broad Islamist spectrum in Indonesia. Their main targets are those groups at
the more conservative and doctrinaire end of the spectrum, whom they accuse
of subversively seeking to Islamise the state and of eroding community harmony
and trust through their pursuit of religious exclusivity. They have a special dislike
of so-called transnational Islamist groups, such as the now-banned Hizbut Tahrir
Indonesia (HTI), the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Prosperous Justice Party (PKS)
and the puritanical Salafists, all of whom they see as representing alien, Arabised
Islamic variants that challenge and undermine local, culturally embedded forms
of Islam, such as that practised by NU.
Tension between pluralists and Islamists has been mounting throughout the
past two decades, but several developments in the past four years have greatly
exacerbated this. The first was the massive Islamist mobilisation during the Jakarta
gubernatorial election campaign in 2016 and 2017, which effectively led to the
defeat of the incumbent governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok). He had seemed
set for a sweeping victory until he was accused of blasphemy, sparking huge
rallies in Jakarta, often accompanied by sectarian and racist vitriol from many
protestors and on social media. Such was the pressure on the government that it
decided to charge and prosecute Ahok; he was found guilty and jailed for two years.
Emboldened Islamist groups followed up with protests on other issues and allied
themselves closely with Prabowo’s 2019 presidential campaign. This mobilisation
sent shock waves through the political system, especially among pluralists, who
feared that the Islamists were ascendant and could bend the state to their will.
The second, more general development is a belief that Islamist ideas and activism
are penetrating deep into the organs of the state, resulting in the capture of whole
sections of the bureaucracy, SOEs and the education system, as well as parts of the
private sector. Pluralists point to surveys of public servants, teachers, and second-
ary and tertiary students that show a sizeable minority is intolerant of minority
faiths, critical of Pancasila and desirous of Indonesia’s becoming an Islamic state
or caliphate. They also cite studies revealing that mosques in government minis-
tries and enterprises are dominated by hardliners who ensure that sermons and
religious study classes put forward only radical understandings of Islam (Jakarta
Globe 2020; Kabar24 2019).
These developments have persuaded the pluralists that Jokowi’s second presi-
dential term has become a critical moment for rolling back Islamism. Not only
did Jokowi and his largely pluralist coalition win the 2019 general and presi-
dential elections, but Prabowo Subianto, the focal point of Islamist politics since
2014, suddenly abandoned his opposition coalition in July and joined Jokowi’s
cabinet, leaving his Islamist supporters dismayed and in disarray. The govern-
ment had already begun to press back against key Islamists after the anti-Ahok
demonstrations and had been buoyed by the results. The most high-profile of the
anti-Ahok leaders, Habib Rizieq Shihab of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), had
been under investigation on various charges before he fled to Saudi Arabia, where
he remains with his influence much diminished. Other leaders were accused of
312 Greg Fealy

various offences, including financial mismanagement, incitement and hate speech;

some were prosecuted, but others disappeared largely from public view, seem-
ingly intimidated by the prospect of being tried and jailed. The banning of HTI
in mid-2017 was another major blow to Islamists. Although not widely liked in
many Islamist circles, HTI was adept at mobilisation and media campaigns, and
it played a pivotal role in the 212 protests. Its banning came after insistent lob-
bying of Jokowi by NU and was intended as a warning to other Islamist groups
(Fealy 2017). Power (2018) and Aspinall and Mietzner (2019) have provided telling
accounts of the anti-Islamist push.
Over the past two years, the government has considerably ramped up its anti-
Islamist efforts. The program is now more systematic and far-reaching, and much
of it is conducted out of public view. Various ministers have set the tone for this
by regularly warning of the dangers of ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalism’, particularly
within government but also in the general community. Among the most vociferous
is the religious affairs minister, former general Fachrul Razi, who from the moment
of his appointment has made anti-radicalism one of his main agendas (CNN
Indonesia 2019). Other ministers with strong stances against Islamism include
home affairs minister Tito Karnavian, education and culture minister Nadiem
Makarim, and finance minister Sri Mulyani. The government has introduced
screening tests that are designed to determine whether public service applicants
hold radical views. Applicants are queried on their attitudes to such things as the
centrality of Pancasila to national life, the supremacy of civil law over sharia law,
and the desirability of establishing a caliphate. Furthermore, managers are now
instructed to look for staff who espouse ‘radical’ views or who engage in network-
ing. Preachers at government mosques are scrutinised, as are Islamic scholars
who come to ministries to conduct Quranic classes. The religious affairs ministry
has begun a program to certify preachers and ensure that they convey moderate
interpretations of Islam (Merdeka 2020).
More insidious are the secretive surveillance and vetting programs. University
leaders, school principals, and public service and SOE executives are frequently
given lists by government security agencies setting out the names of staff who are
identified as ‘extremists’, often owing to the organisations that they are members
of, functions that they have attended or websites that they visit. These ‘problem-
atic’ staff members are then warned that their affiliations, actions or views are not
only unacceptable for government staff but also detrimental to their future careers.
Similar processes have occurred in private industry, with large corporations in stra-
tegic sectors instructed to monitor or take action against ‘hard-line’ staff members.
It is clear from these lists that a large-scale surveillance operation is being con-
ducted by state agencies, seemingly using sophisticated data-monitoring programs,
as well as extensive on-the-ground reporting on targeted Islamist communities.
This campaign has now become a serious human rights issue, with probably
many thousands of Islamists in the public and private sectors subject to discrimi-
nation on the basis of their religious or political views. While the government
may argue that these actions are necessary to protect Indonesia’s tolerant and
democratic foundations, in reality many of those targeted in these campaigns have
broken no laws or regulations, and the action taken against them is arbitrary and
prejudicial. A central problem is that the campaign offers only vague definitions
of ‘extremist’ or ‘radical’ Islam. The term is most obviously applied to former
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 313

members of HTI, which remains active underground, and to convicted jihadists.

Arguably, Muslims within these two categories can justifiably be monitored, given
the clear laws relating to their status. But in practice, a far wider array of Islamists
is ensnared in this net. They include members and sympathisers of PKS, mem-
bers of conservative predication movements such as Jamaah Tabligh (JT), and
Salafists. PKS, for example, is a legally registered party and it formally renounced
Islamism in 2008. It has formed part of the ruling coalition governments for 11 of
the past 22 years and has had dozens of its cadre elected as governors, district
heads and mayors across Indonesia. It has one of the better records of following
the ‘rules’ of the democratic game and there has never been any substantial evi-
dence of subversive intent. Nonetheless, PKS members are frequently targeted by
the government’s campaign. Similarly, most JT members and Salafists dedicate
themselves to proselytising and educating, and eschew political activity. There
would seem no grounds on which the police or prosecutors could charge members
of these communities, but nonetheless many suffer intimidation and are discour-
aged from freely expressing their religious and political views.
This is, in effect, large-scale social engineering designed to deter Indonesians
from pursuing a conservative Islamic lifestyle and Islamist political objectives. The
intent is to sufficiently pressure Islamists either to leave their positions or to relin-
quish their views and affiliations (or at least appear to) in order to safeguard their
careers. In this regard it is repressive pluralism. The objective is not to genuinely
protect and respect the diversity of doctrines and associations in Indonesia but
rather to constrain it by narrowing the range of permissible expression. Although
pluralists believe that they have the Islamists on the defensive and should press
their advantage throughout the remainder of Jokowi’s presidency, their actions risk
an Islamist backlash against the state and pluralist forces—one that could easily
lead to greater future political tensions and polarisation. Further radicalisation
is also a possibility. The pluralists’ optimism that they have Islamism in retreat
would seem misguided. It is difficult for states to control the broader flow of public
opinion and belief. If there is an organic movement within the Muslim community
towards more conservative values, then states have limited ability to influence this.
Jokowi has undoubtedly given his imprimatur to the anti-Islamist campaign,
even if he never speaks explicitly of this in public. He has long regarded Islamism
as a major threat not only to his presidency but also to national cohesion. Islamist
attacks almost brought about his political defeat in the 2014 presidential elec-
tion, and in 2019 he lost in most of the provinces where conservative Islam is
strong. Occasionally, his statements reveal how he views political Islam, such as
in 2017 when he declared that it was dangerous to combine religion and politics
in Indonesia. He has also warned against those who claim that their religion or
understanding of religion is best, which most commentators understood as criti-
cism of self-righteous Islamists (Kompas 2017).

Sukarnoism is the Solution

Another front in the ideological battle between pluralism and Islamism opened
up in mid-2020 when PDIP sought to pass into law a bill on Pancasila Ideological
Guidelines (HIP). Officially, the bill was an attempt to provide a statutory basis for
the Agency for Fostering Pancasila Ideology (BPIP), which is chaired by Megawati.
The contents of the proposed legislation, however, pointed to the more ambitious
314 Greg Fealy

purpose of seeking to place Sukarnoist ideology at the centre of the nation’s incul-
cation of pluralist Pancasila values. The bill set out Sukarno’s concept that the five
principles of Pancasila, including the principle of belief in one almighty God, could
be reduced to three principles (trisila)—social nationalism, social democracy and
belief in God—which could be further distilled into the single principle (ekasila)
of mutual assistance (gotong royong). The drafters of the bill also decided to omit
MPR Decree 25/1966 banning communism and the Indonesian Communist Party.
PDIP politicians told the media that the bill was needed to help fight radicalism
and extremism (Kurniawan 2020).
The HIP bill drew an almost immediate reaction from Islamic organisations. The
Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI) voiced strong objections to the bill, describing
it as ‘atheistic’ and a pathway for communism’s return. It also rejected the trisila
and ekasila concepts as downplaying the importance of religion and declared that
it was an obligation for all Muslim members of parliament to repudiate the bill
(Kumparan 2020f). More seriously for PDIP, retired senior TNI officers and NU
also denounced the bill, with NU leaders fearing that it could revive old contesta-
tions between Islam and nationalism (Farisa 2020).
Tensions between PDIP and Islamists rose sharply during the year. When PDIP
flags were burned by Islamist protesters in Jakarta, the party’s secretary-general,
Hasto Kristiyanto, referred the matter to the police, calling it an attack on the
Jokowi government. He went on to warn Islamists against ‘testing our [PDIP’s]
revolutionary forbearance’ and stated that PDIP was a ‘militant party’ with genuine
‘grassroots strength’. In a thinly veiled allusion to Islamist extremism, he said that
PDIP had learned from the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Libya how to respond to
such behaviour (Kumparan 2020d, 2020g). The anti-communist civil society organi-
sation Taktis reciprocated by reporting Hasto and another PDIP parliamentarian
to the police for proposing a bill that favoured communism (WartaKota 2020).
Amien Rais, former Muhammadiyah chair and founder of the National Mandate
Party, called the bill the work of the Antichrist (Al-Dajjāl) (DetikNews 2020). Several
weeks later, a group of Islamists attempted to firebomb a PDIP office in West Java
in retaliation for the actions of PDIP members in burning the image of the FPI spir-
itual leader, Habib Rizieq. More recently, a diverse group of Islamic leaders and
government critics formed the Action Coalition to Save Indonesia (KAMI), which,
among other things, sought to oppose the ‘threat to Pancasila’ posed by the HIP
bill and to prevent issues of tolerance and moderation from being used as weapons
against Islamic groups. The most prominent figures in KAMI were former TNI
commander Gatot Nurmantyo, who has a long record of pandering to sectarian
and nationalist sentiments, and former Muhammadiyah chair and intellectual Din
Syamsuddin (Kumparan 2020b).
Eventually PDIP was forced to withdraw the bill and replace it with one that
included the 1966 anti-communism decree and omitted the clauses on trisila and
ekasila. The entire HIP bill episode was a significant and telling miscalculation by
PDIP. It shed light on the party’s growing factionalism, revolving around the rivalry
between Megawati’s son from her first marriage, Muhammad Prananda Prabowo,
and her daughter from her second marriage, Puan Maharani. The bill had been
the work of party ideologues who congregated around Prananda. Sukarnoism has
an almost sacred hold on them and they regard Islamism as the abiding enemy of
Pancasila (Aritonang 2020). They believe that Sukarnoist thinking offers a solution
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 315

to the nation’s growing Islamic conservatism, a view shared by few outside their
faction.1 They also have no objection to cadres with family links to former commu-
nists, which may explain why the HIP bill pointedly omitted the 1966 MPR decree.
Prananda and his followers were shocked at TNI’s and NU’s rejections of the bill
and were left with little alternative but to backtrack. By contrast, Puan and her sup-
porters have been more pragmatic and more concerned with political dealmaking
than with waging ideological battles. It is notable, though, that significant sections
of PDIP felt bold enough in the past year to directly confront Islamism, something
that PDIP has not done before. The emergence of KAMI shows that the Islamists
are not willing to cede ground to the pluralists, and especially to PDIP, without a
fight. In this regard, the polarisation that marked 2019 has deepened.

JOKOWI’S DYNASTICISM
When Jokowi first made his run for the Jakarta governorship and then the presi-
dency, between 2012 and 2014, one of his selling points was that he was from
outside the political elites. He cast himself as a person of humble birth and a
self-made man, who had worked hard to put himself through university, gain
government positions and establish himself as a successful entrepreneur before
entering politics as the mayor of Solo in 2005. According to this version, his career
advancement had been due to merit and single-minded determination. Unlike so
many in politics, he had not relied upon family connections or powerful patrons
to secure opportunities for him. He was lauded as the first Reformasi-era politi-
cal leader not to come from a privileged and powerful family. As such, he came
to symbolise a more open and egalitarian spirit, which was meant to suffuse the
new post-Soeharto political mood. Although there is much truth to this account,
it needs also to be acknowledged that Jokowi attracted support from important
elite figures during his rise, among them Luhut Panjaitan, the former general and
Golkar politician who became one of his business partners, and Prabowo Subianto,
who nominated Jokowi for governor in Jakarta.
It came as a surprise, then, to many of Jokowi’s reform-minded supporters, as
well as to political observers, when in mid-2020 he gave his open blessing to his
33-year-old son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, and his 29-year-old son-in-law, Bobby
Afif Nasution, to run for the mayoralties of Surakarta and Medan, respectively, in
the December elections of regional heads (pilkada). Both were businessmen, with
Gibran owning a medium-sized catering company and a chain of pancake (mar-
tabak) stores, and Bobby working as a marketing director for a real-estate firm.
Neither of them had any direct experience in politics and they only joined Jokowi’s
PDIP in early 2020 when their nomination plans were well advanced. Gibran had
some public profile by virtue of being his father’s son—his gala wedding in Solo
in 2015 was watched by an audience of millions—but he had no record of speaking
substantively on political or social issues; Bobby was largely unknown (Hamdan
2019; Viva 2017). In order to win nomination, both would have to push aside well-
established and popular local politicians who had already secured the support of
their PDIP branches.

1. I am grateful to Marcus Mietzner for sharing his insights into PDIP’s ideological thinking.
316 Greg Fealy

From mid-2019, the media had been reporting rumours that Gibran wanted to
follow his father into politics. His intent became clear in October of that year when
he visited the PDIP chair, Megawati, at her central Jakarta residence to announce
his plan to nominate. She advised him to work within the party to secure the neces-
sary support but was clearly favourably disposed to his nomination. In December,
Bobby approached Prabowo and other coalition parties asking for their approval
to contest the Medan mayoral election (Koran Tempo 2020a). Formal endorsement
for both men did not come till mid-2020. In Gibran’s case, all of the coalition parties
that hold seats in the local Surakarta legislature are supporting his nomination;
Bobby has the backing of PDIP, NasDem and several other coalition parties.
Gibran’s and Bobby’s nominations have been cast by the palace as their own
initiatives. The palace has also suggested that Jokowi somewhat grudgingly agreed
to the nominations because to do otherwise would be to deny Gibran and Bobby
their rights as citizens. Why should a president’s relatives be denied the chance
of their own political careers? But it is now clear that, far from being a reluctant
party in this process, Jokowi had in fact pressured family members to enter poli-
tics. Sources within the palace indicate that in mid-2019, Jokowi complained to his
family that none of his children was politically active. At that point, the only one of
his children who had shown an interest in politics was his youngest son, Kaesang
Pangarep, but he was regarded as unready to run for public office. Eventually,
Gibran agreed to seek the mayoralty of Surakarta. It appears likely that Bobby’s
decision to stand was also due to family pressure, as he has looked uncomfortable
in the role from the outset.
Once Gibran and Bobby had committed to nominating, Jokowi and his allies
began intervening to ensure their success. This was most evident with Gibran.
To be nominated by PDIP, he needed endorsement from the Surakarta branch.
However, the branch had already decided to nominate Achmad Purnomo, the
deputy mayor of Surakarta, and Teguh Prakosa, the Surakarta legislative speaker,
and it strongly resisted pressure from Jakarta to alter its recommendations (Jakarta
Post 2019). Surakarta was a PDIP stronghold and the branch was proud of its strict
cadre-isation process. Purnomo and Teguh were both party stalwarts with exten-
sive experience in municipal politics and administration. By contrast, Gibran was
a political neophyte. Surakarta’s outgoing mayor and local PDIP powerbroker,
Fransiskus Xaverius Hadi Rudyatmo, objected strongly to the outside intervention,
souring his relations with Jokowi, whom he had once served as deputy mayor.
Nonetheless, by mid-year, the branch had buckled to pressure from the central
leadership, and Purnomo withdrew in favour of Gibran, grimly telling journalists
that ‘when you’re up against the president’s son, what can you do?’ On 16 July,
PDIP Surakarta duly announced that its new ticket for the mayoral elections would
be Gibran and Teguh (Adi 2020; Retaduari 2020).
Jokowi’s next steps laid bare his determination to smooth Gibran’s path into
politics. He summoned Purnomo to lunch with him at the presidential palace in
Jakarta and offered him employment in the capital. Purnomo rejected this out of
hand and seemed to take pleasure in later telling the press of this rejection as he
left the palace (Koran Tempo 2020b). There can be little doubt that Jokowi was seek-
ing to remove Purnomo as a possible threat to Gibran’s campaign, but his attempt
backfired. Commentators criticised him for using his presidential office for party
and family interests rather than matters of state. At about the same time, Jokowi’s
brother-in-law Wahyu Purwanto, who was the incumbent district head in Gunung
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 317

Kidul, suddenly withdrew from his re-election campaign, telling the media that
the president had asked him not to run. Jokowi’s intervention seemed aimed at
lessening criticism of his family’s new-found dynasticism; in effect, Purwanto’s
career had been sacrificed for Gibran’s (Koran Tempo 2020g).
A similar process was undertaken for Bobby’s nomination in Medan, though
with less obvious involvement by Jokowi. Bobby needed to displace a strong local
candidate, Akhyar Nasution, a veteran PDIP member who had been deputy mayor
of Medan since 2016 and had been acting mayor for the past year. Akhyar came
under pressure from Jakarta to withdraw his nomination, and a PDIP minister was
dispatched to Medan to instruct the local branch to fall in behind Bobby. Shortly
afterwards, Akhyar resigned from PDIP and joined the Democrat Party, which
promptly nominated him for mayor (Koran Tempo 2020d, 2020e).
Gibran’s and Bobby’s prospects appear to differ. Gibran, though prodded by
his father to run, looks to be relishing the challenge. Although inexperienced in
politics, he is said to be a fast learner with his father’s determination to succeed.
Being Jokowi’s son will assist him powerfully in Surakarta, where his father is
greatly admired. But his public statements betray a certain sense of entitlement
and an inability to package his messages well. When asked, for example, if his
nomination was dynastic, he said that the regional elections were a competitive
process and people were not forced to vote for him, a response that suggested he
was confusing dynasticism with authoritarianism (Kumparan 2020c). Bobby’s path
is much harder. Akhyar is a battle-tested opponent with deep networks in Medan
society and all the benefits of incumbency. Moreover, Bobby looks uncertain and
half-hearted on the campaign trail.
What reasons might Jokowi have for establishing a political dynasty? After
all, this strategy presents several risks, and Jokowi is a notably risk-averse politi-
cian. To begin with, his dynasticism will undoubtedly harm his already tarnished
reputation as a reformer and ethical politician. A recent telephone survey found
that as many as 61% of voters disapprove of political dynasties, and 58% want
laws limiting the ability of an incumbent’s family members to run for public office
(Straits Times 2020). On top of that, Gibran and Bobby might turn out to be politi-
cal failures, with either or both not being elected or not proving to be competent
municipal leaders whose careers can progress. One explanation for why Jokowi
is supporting his son and son-in-law is that he has succumbed to the prevailing
elite culture, which condones and facilitates the advancement of family members.
The president is clearly proud of Gibran and regularly extols his achievements in
business. He may well reason that his son is at least as capable as the scions of other
powerful politicians who are willing to kick-start the political careers of family
members. Perhaps most important of all is that Jokowi believes that Indonesia
needs the kind of leadership that he is providing and that, through Gibran, he can
continue to exert the kind of influence that would perpetuate the achievements of
his presidency. It may even be the case that the more severe the impact of Covid-19
on Jokowi’s second term, the more he feels driven to invest in Gibran’s political
future. Though appearing humble, Jokowi is not without conceit.
Jokowi’s newly minted dynasticism has implications far beyond his own family.
It has, in fact, given impetus to other dynastic nominations within the govern-
ing elite. Whereas Jokowi once disapproved of relatives’ following ministers and
senior officials into politics, he now has reason to encourage others in the practice
so that his own dynastic turn is less conspicuous. At least five relatives of cabinet
318 Greg Fealy

members are now confirmed candidates in the December 2020 local elections. Vice
President Ma’ruf Amin’s daughter Siti Nur Azizah is a candidate for deputy mayor
in South Tangerang, Banten. Another of his relatives, the television actor Adly
Fairuz, is running for the position of deputy district head in Karawang, West Java.
Ma’ruf was known to be hesitant to push his daughter’s nomination until Jokowi
urged him to do so (Koran Tempo 2020c). Prabowo’s niece and a former member of
parliament, Rahayu Saraswati Djojohadikusumo, is also contesting the election for
deputy mayor in South Tangerang. The son of Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung,
Hanindhito Pramana, is the endorsed PDIP candidate for the position of district
head in Kediri, East Java. Agriculture Minister Syahrul Limpo’s younger brother,
Irman, is a deputy mayoral candidate in Makassar.
Political dynasties have been present in Indonesian politics since the founding
of the republic, but there are indications that the December pilkada are shaping to
be the most dynastic of the Reformasi period. Indonesian researcher Yoes Kenawas,
from Northwestern University, has estimated that 202 dynastic politicians con-
tested local elections between 2015 and 2018, of whom 117 were successful. By
contrast, only 39 local politicians in 2013 came from established political families.
His preliminary count put the number of dynastic nominees in the December 2020
elections at 146. He thought it likely that in excess of 100 would be elected—more
than double the 52 elected in 2015 (Kenawas 2020). Research conducted by the
Indonesia Institute in Jakarta tallied 52 candidates from political dynasties. Of these,
23 were the children of politicians, 16 were wives and nine were siblings. PDIP was
by far the most dynastic of the parties, with almost half of the cases (Kartika 2020).
This recent spurt in dynastic activity is about more than securing the interests
of particular families; it is part of a complex web of manoeuvres and tacit deals
within the governing coalition to improve the chances of its parties in the 2024
elections (Koran Tempo 2020f). In this regard, dynasticism has become an important
aspect of alliance building. For example, Megawati and Prabowo have rekindled
their close personal relationship over the past year as PDIP and Gerindra position
themselves for a possible joint ticket between Prabowo and Puan—Megawati’s
daughter and the current parliamentary speaker—for the next presidential election.
Both the PDIP and Gerindra leaderships have been happy to back the candidacies
of Gibran and Bobby in the expectation that Jokowi will reciprocate by support-
ing the Prabowo–Puan nomination in four years’ time. Whether Jokowi is indeed
willing to do this is far from certain, given that polling shows the electability of the
Prabowo–Puan pairing to be low compared with other candidates, such as Jakarta
governor Anies, West Java governor Ridwan Kamil and Central Java governor
Ganjar Pranowo. These governors are seen as dynamic and capable leaders who
have managed the Covid-19 crises in their respective provinces well; by contrast,
Prabowo will be 72 in 2024 and Puan has been an unexceptional politician. Jokowi
seldom backs losers and he may well swing his support behind Ridwan or Ganjar
rather than a doomed Prabowo candidacy.

CONCLUSIONS
The full impact of the coronavirus on Indonesia’s society, politics and economy
is unlikely to be apparent until well after the pandemic has passed. The initial
consequences, however, were already evident by late 2020. As in many other
nations hard hit by Covid-19, democracy has regressed in Indonesia as the state
Jokowi in the Covid-19 Era 319

has become more overbearing. This is, in part, a direct result of the severity of the
public health and economic crises besetting the country as the government has
scrambled to ensure social compliance with pandemic protocols while minimising
the damaging economic effects of reduced community activity. But this regression
in Indonesia began many years prior to Covid-19 and can thus be seen as part of a
deeper process of democratic erosion wrought by political and economic elites that
seek to entrench their own interests and power. Key elements of this longer-term
democratic backsliding can be seen in the undermining of anti-corruption efforts,
reductions in freedom of speech and association, and attempts (so far unsuccess-
ful) to abolish direct regional elections. Over the past year, the Jokowi government
has hastened democratic reversal by significantly expanding the role in public life
of the armed forces and the national intelligence agency and by launching dis-
criminatory actions and sometimes criminal prosecutions against Islamists who
are deemed inimical to Indonesia’s pluralist and religiously neutral constitutional
principles and traditions. In addition, pro-government sources, possibly including
state agencies, have stepped up cyberattacks and vilification campaigns against
critics in order to suppress opposition to government policies. To be sure, Indonesia
retains its position as one of the more democratic nations in Southeast Asia, but its
ranking continues to slip, particularly because of reductions in civil liberties and
the criminalisation of dissent (Hicken 2020). The Covid-19 crisis has accelerated
the autocratising tendencies in Indonesian politics.
Jokowi has played a key role in this process, either by commission or omission.
He has been a keen promoter of greater military and intelligence involvement in
civilian life, not so much because he seeks to remilitarise politics or repress society,
but rather because he sees it as an efficient and effective way to implement policies
that his own bureaucracy has been slow in carrying out, and also because it seems
consonant with national security and stability. He has been silent on the intimida-
tion of his government’s opponents. And he has joined the ranks of so many elite
families in urging and then facilitating the path into politics of his own family
members, regardless of the dynastic and nepotistic impression that this may give.
Jokowi has always been a politician without a broad conceptual framework to
guide him or a strong commitment to principles beyond those of fostering economic
growth and development. The longer he serves as president, the more apparent the
consequences of his lack of a rigorous political framework become. The Covid-19
crisis has accentuated these tendencies, bequeathing a political system that is more
securitised, dynastic and subject to statist interests than that which he inherited.

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