Jokowi's Dynasty and the Future of Democracy

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Arranging for his son to run for the vice presidency is a manifestation of Jokowi’s paranoia and lack of self-belief. Something that is personal has wrecked democracy.

Ten years ago, the majority of the Indonesian people voted for Joko Widodo as president to prevent Prabowo Subianto from taking power. Prabowo is a symbol of the old power of the new order that the 1998 Reformasi movement set out to destroy. Now, not only are they allies, but Jokowi has even shown his support for Prabowo by pairing the Gerindra Party Chair with his son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the 2024 election.

After failing to garner public and political support to extend his presidency, Jokowi used a tactic that appears at a glance to be democratic to hold on to power. In many nations, political dynasties are not forbidden. But they damage democracy because they tarnish the fairness of the electoral system. As the nation’s leader, Jokowi can mobilize state officials and institutions as well as sources of funds to bring about victory for a presidential candidate he supports.

The replacements of the Communication and Informatics Minister, the Agriculture Minister and the Indonesian Army Chief-of-Staff with people known to have a history of being close to Jokowi can easily be interpreted as a part of the endeavor to ensure victory in the 2024 elections, rather than to improve the management of the three institutions.

In the 2020 simultaneous regional elections, mobilization of the government apparatus by the patrons of contestants for regional heads was effective in garnering votes. Of 804 candidates, 16.8 percent had a connection with political dynasties and 42.96 percent won their elections. As Herbert Simon wrote in Administrative Behavior (1947), in a democratic electoral system, voters tend to be guided by the voices of those elites who have the resources to control information. A 2022 study by Halilul Khairi of the Institute of Public Administration claimed that in general voters vote for regional heads who are popular, even if they are incompetent or a part of a political dynasty.

Jokowi’s freedom to run roughshod over the ideals of the 1998 Reformasi movement is a result of most political parties only thinking of their own interests. Instead of becoming leader of the opposition, Prabowo Subianto accepted Jokowi’s offer to become Minister of Defense after being defeated in the 2014 and 2019 elections. The excuse of reconciliation to heal polarization meant that these elections were nothing more than a reason the two men used to build this strange coalition.

Other parties followed Prabowo into Jokowi’s cabinet. The unconditional coalition that Jokowi established gave him the freedom to embrace and bring together his political opponents. Parties that were hungry for power then vied to serve Jokowi’s wishes to muzzle and paralyze the institutions that put limits on their own power.

The political parties in the House of Representatives agreed when Jokowi emasculated the Corruption Eradication Commission. And the parties allowed the Constitutional Court to be taken over by Jokowi through the marriage of his sister to Constitutional Court Chief Justice Anwar Usman. Jokowi even openly used law enforcement institutes against political opponents who disagreed with him and to prevent allies from defecting.

An investigation by this magazine revealed that Golkar’s support for Gibran Rakabuming Raka is because its Chair Airlangga Hartarto is effectively being held hostage to a case involving cooking oil corruption case and allegations over misappropriation of Oil Palm Plantation Support Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS) subsidies. An investigation by the Attorney General’s Office led to Golkar voluntarily becoming a political vehicle for Gibran as the vice-presidential candidate despite the fact that he is a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

When power is uncontrolled, a president like Jokowi is free to make whatever policies he likes, even if they endanger Indonesia. Lighthouse projects that burden state funds, the construction of the Nusantara capital city in East Kalimantan without a proper study and the extraction of resources in a way that damages the environment are merely the output of this power without control.

With policies that do not meet the standards of good governance, Jokowi needs a president after 2024 that will protect him from legal consequences. Arranging for his son to run for the vice presidency is a manifestation of Jokowi’s paranoia and lack of self-belief—something that is personal, but that fundamentally damages democracy.

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