Indonesia

It’s nice, in a way, to see issues one has worked on appear in major, globally important publications. This past week, just before President Obama’s trip to Asia, the Banyan column in The Economist, a column that focuses on Asia, detailed the Obama administration’s general disinterest in issues related to democracy and human rights in Asia. Banyan notes that President Obama has kept quiet as protests for suffrage have raged in Hong Kong. Banyan also writes that the Obama administration also has ignored a serious regression in political freedoms in Malaysia, maintained the close bilateral relationship with Thailand even as a military junta took over in Bangkok, and spent little time working on relations with the new Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, as authentic a democrat as you will get anywhere. The Washington Post editorial board last week echoed these same sentiments. In an editorial, the board focused on the growing crackdown on dissent in Malaysia, noting that, “Mr. Obama has made a point of cultivating [Malaysian Prime Minister] Najib [tun Razak] and his government as part of his policy of ‘rebalancing’ toward Asia, and so far the administration has had little to say about the political crackdown [in Malaysia].” I have been detailing the administration’s lack of interest in democracy promotion and human rights issues in Southeast Asia for several years now, including in a book, a working paper, and many articles. But though it’s nice to see others hitting the same notes, I see little evidence that the White House’s policies are changing. The president still has said nothing about Anwar Ibrihim’s trial, which almost surely will conclude with him being sentenced this week or next. The White House has been mum about the general deteriorating climate of free speech in Malaysia, which Anwar’s case fits into. The administration also has decided to push ahead with rapprochement with Myanmar despite the country’s deteriorating political environment, and the White House has made the decision to keep the Cobra Gold multilateral military exercises in Thailand in 2015. The decision to retain Cobra Gold in Thailand is a choice the Thai (military) government is interpreting as a signal that U.S.-Thai relations are returning to normal, even though Thai politics surely is not. As Human Rights Watch notes, the Thai government continues to ban public gatherings and has detained hundreds of activists and journalists and academics; the initial reporting of the government’s plans for a return to legislative rule suggest that the legislature will be comprised in an extremely gerrymandered way that allows people in Bangkok to dominate despite being, numerically, a minority of the population. As the Banyan column notes, these decisions have a cumulative effect, and that effect is not just a symbolic tarnishing of ideals. Ignoring rights in Asia, Banyan writes: Has a cost....It squanders part of America’s “soft power,” a great asset.…For all its flaws and missteps, [America] represents not just economic and military might, but an ideal to aspire to, in a way that China does not. And when American leaders appear to give less weight to that ideal, they not only diminish America’s attractions, they also lend more credence to the idea of its relative economic and military decline. Having written for The Economist, I know its editors love one-word sentences, so I can say only...Indeed.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. North Korea releases U.S. prisoner. On Tuesday, Pyongyang released Jeffrey Fowle, one of three Americans currently detained in North Korea. Fowle, a fifty-six-year-old road maintenance worker from Ohio, was detained after he was found to have left a Bible in his hotel during a tour of North Korea; ownership of Bibles and missionary-related activities are illegal in North Korea. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said there was no deal made for Fowle’s release and urged Pyongyang to release the two other detainees, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller. North Korea has recently been outspoken in its defense of its treatment of political prisoners and rejection of U.S. and UN allegations of human rights violations. 2. Chinese Communist Party wraps up Fourth Plenum. China’s top leaders finished their four-day plenary session on Thursday, pledging to enhance the rule of law. Though details of the proceedings have yet to be released, the CCP issued a communique at the close of the plenum on “comprehensively advancing ruling the country according to the law” (in Chinese; Xinhua has a partial translation here). According to the communique, the party will seek to: lessen local officials’ control over the legal system, increase accountability and transparency, stress the importance of the constitution, and maintain the CCP’s authority over the rule of law. Though legal analysts welcomed the emphasis on rule of law, it remains clear that the party retains absolute control over the levers of China’s judiciary. 3. Japanese ministers resign. In a setback to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to promote women in the workforce, so-called “womenomics,” two of the five recently appointed female cabinet ministers resigned their posts for unrelated reasons on Monday. Yuko Obuchi, minister of economy, trade, and industry who had been tasked with regaining public support for restarting Japan’s shuttered nuclear plants, is under attack for questionable accounting procedures carried out by political organizations tied to her. Justice Minister Midori Matsushima resigned for violating political finance laws after opposition politicians criticized her for handing out hand-held fans to supporters for free. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Abe appointed Yoko Kamikawa as the new justice minister and Yoichi Miyazawa as the new trade minister, but already Miyazawa is under attack after it surfaced that one of his support groups had spent nearly $200 at a sadomasochism-themed bar. The latest events have led some to question the stability of the Abe Administration, though resignations and scandals are not unprecedented for Japanese cabinets. 4. Murder in the Philippines strains ties with the United States. A U.S. Marine accused in the killing of a twenty-six-year-old Filipin0 woman was placed in custody in the Philippines on Wednesday. Some Filipino senators used the case as a chance to call for a review of the U.S.-Philippine military alliance, which allows the United States to station ships, aircraft, and other equipment in the country. The U.S. embassy said that it would cooperate with the trial according to Philippine law, but also exert its right to keep Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton under U.S. custody. The United States and Philippines signed a ten-year Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement in April with the intention of making it easier for the U.S. military to temporarily station personnel in the country. The agreement came as the Philippines, with a weak air force and navy, is in the midst of territorial disputes with China. 5. Indonesia swears in a new president. Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, took the presidential oath of office on Monday during a nationally televised special session of the People’s Consultative Assembly in Jakarta. After Jokowi was inaugurated as Indonesia’s seventh president, he and Vice President Jusuf Kalla rode through central Jakarta to the presidential palace in an open horse-drawn carriage. Hailed as “the people’s president,” Jokowi has already pledged to fight for free health care, twelve years of schooling to every Indonesian, and increased investment in the agricultural sector. Entering office with these—and other—domestic concerns in mind, his administration will face its first tests in the foreign policy realm with meetings of APEC, ASEAN, the East Asian Summit, and G-20 leaders scheduled in November. Bonus: Popular saxophonist Kenny G strikes a bad note in China. Stopping by the pro-democracy protest camp in Hong Kong before a performance, Kenny G threw up peace signs and posed for photos with fans. Chinese government officials—although admitted admirers of his music—expressed their disapproval in a scheduled news conference, prompting Kenny G to delete the photos from his Twitter account and clarify that he was “not supporting the demonstrators.”

Last week, I warned that the passage of a proposed law by Indonesia’s parliament that would end direct elections of local officials would be a major blow to Indonesian democracy. The legislation had been championed by the most retrograde elements in Indonesia, and in particular by the party of the losing presidential candidate in this past July’s election, Prabowo Subianto. Direct election of local and provincial officials had been a critical post-Suharto reform, a major part of Indonesia’s decentralization process, and a vital element of political empowerment. Direct elections had helped create a new group of younger Indonesian political leaders who actually had to serve their local publics or—horrors!—risk being booted out of office, and it also (somewhat) shifted the political balance of power away from Jakarta and out across the archipelago. Such a process of decentralization only made sense in a vast and diverse country.  Allowing for more local and provincial elections did increase the possibility of graft in holding more polls, as I noted in my book Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline in Representative Government. But, for most Indonesians, this was a reasonable price to pay to (generally) get more responsive local government. And in any event, earlier methods of selecting local leaders—basically, they were hand-chosen by Suharto and his allies—still had led to enormous amounts of rent-seeking. But Jakarta elites—the business, political, and defense elites who had dominated Indonesian politics for decades, going back to the Suharto era—always resented the direct election law and the decentralization in general.  Prabowo, who had been married to Suharto’s daughter, and his party, during this year’s presidential campaign made no secret of the fact that they thought Indonesia had gone too far in embracing liberal democracy, and that average Indonesians were not suited for deciding about who should lead them. During the campaign, Prabowo and his party embraced an earlier, more authoritarian Indonesian idea of “guided democracy” in which elites essentially managed the country and allowed sham elections to justify their rule. (Expect to see something similar emerge in the post-coup period in Thailand today.) Prabowo and his party, during the campaign, also had championed the idea that Indonesia needed a strong central government and a powerful, one-man leadership. These ideas were in tune with an older conception of Indonesian politics and “Asian values,” but which seemed thoroughly outdated today to many Indonesians who had grown up in the post-Suharto era and who had witnessed the process of decentralization and no longer relied on a few big broadcast networks (which were generally pro-Prabowo) to get their news. So, Prabowo lost, and former Jakarta and Solo mayor Joko Widodo, who had come up in Indonesian politics precisely because of direct elections, became the next president of Indonesia. But last week, during the last days of the current Indonesian parliament in a vote held with little debate and little transparency, legislators led by Prabowo’s party succeeded in passing the bill ending local elections. As during the election campaign, leaders in Prabowo’s party once again claimed that liberal democracy was not suited for Indonesia and that the bill, which would basically hand selection of local leaders back to a handful of elites, was more suited to Indonesian politics and culture. In other words—"you Indonesians aren’t smart enough to pick your leaders." Indonesians don’t seem to agree. Surveys show that about 80 percent of Indonesians want to retain direct elections. Shamefully, current Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and his Democratic Party, despite holding the largest number of seats in parliament, basically did nothing to stop the passage of this retrograde law. Instead, most of the Democrats just walked out of parliament before the vote occurred, essentially allowing the bill to pass, while SBY, whose reformist credentials have slipped badly in his second term, said after the bill was passed that he would not allow it. Unfortunately, Indonesia’s political system does not work like that of the United States, and SBY cannot just veto the law; if he actually opposed it, he should have stood up in public in early September and campaigned aggressively against the bill. He also could have rallied his Democrats to stay in parliament and vote with legislator who opposed the bill, bringing it to defeat. But SBY did neither. And by leaving parliament before the vote, the Democrats all but ensured that the bill would win passage, since Prabowo’s allies controlled a majority in parliament once the Democrats walked out. (Five Democratic legislators did not join the walkout, stayed, and voted against the bill.) The direct election bill might seem just like sour grapes from Prabowo, who tried all manner of dirty tricks to steal the presidential election and, afterwards, refused to concede to Jokowi even though Prabowo had clearly lost. Having been prepared by his elite family his entire life to ascend to the presidency, Prabowo seems to be having a difficult time accepting the ultimate prize will not be his. But the bill means far, far more than sour grapes; if it is not overturned by Indonesia’s highest court, the law could seriously cripple Indonesian democracy and ensure that a Jokowi-type leader never ascends to the presidency again. In a country that has set the standard for successful democratization for developing nations around the world, that would be more than a shame—it would be a disaster.

In the wake of the election of Joko Widodo as Indonesia’s president, many Indonesians were hopeful that the country’s nascent democracy finally had proved its strength and that Widodo, known to all as Jokowi, would be able to build on his election and leave a legacy of dramatic political reform. After all, Jokowi was the first president who came from politics in the post-Suharto era, and he was also the first president to have risen up in politics organically rather than through elite political maneuvering—he had emerged as a national politician partly as a result of the decentralization Indonesia undertook a decade ago that allowed for direct elections. Jokowi had risen from mayor of Solo, where he delivered effective governance, to mayor of Jakarta, and finally to presidential candidate. He had the strongest credentials as a democrat of any leader in modern Indonesian history. During the actual voting and counting period, Indonesia’s democracy also appeared to prove its strength. Despite multiple attempts by the campaign of rival presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto to subvert the voting and counting process and suggest that Jokowi had not won the most votes, which Jokowi clearly had done, Prabowo’s attempts failed. Potential fraud by Prabowo failed to shift the election, attempts by the Prabowo campaign to intimidate the election commission and highest court to throw out the election had no impact, and Jokowi supporters rallied, in public and on social media, to support their candidate, reinforce the idea that all Indonesian votes count equally, and buck up the election commission and highest court to make the correct decision. This support for democracy clearly played a role in ensuring Jokowi’s victory was upheld. However, in the wake of the election it still appears that Indonesian democracy remains under threat from retrograde politicians who still do not trust the Indonesian people to select the best candidates. Shortly after the election was upheld, Prabowo’s coalition in parliament, which controls far more legislators than Jokowi’s coalition, announced they would launch legislation ending direct election of most local and provincial leaders, which had been a key aspect of Indonesia’s successful decentralization process. These direct elections had not only empowered people across the archipelago, putting them more in touch with politics than they had been when Jakarta ruled everything, but helped create a new group of political leaders, like Jokowi. These leaders ran for local positions, demonstrated their leadership skills, and then graduated to national politics. In this way, decentralization began the emasculation of the Jakarta political and military elites who had dominated politics since Indonesian independence. The decentralization process has been praised by a wide range of outside analysts (including this author) as a model for other developing nations. The bill on direct elections would replace direct elections with a mechanism in which assemblies across the country would choose local leaders. This would be a disaster for Indonesian democracy, as the bill would essentially allow a few provincial and national elites to choose local leaders. A recent poll by the respected Indonesian Survey Circle showed that about eighty percent of Indonesians, across the country, support the idea of direct elections—and thus would oppose the bill.  Legislators will vote on this bill on September 25. Will Indonesian supporters of democracy come out into the streets and on social media to oppose this bill, and maintain decentralization, as fervently as they came out for Jokowi?

As the new president of Indonesia (don’t tell Prabowo Subianto), Joko Widodo has a full plate. The economy is slowing down, the education system is one of the worst in the region, the country’s physical infrastructure is crumbling, the region is looking to Indonesia as a natural leader, and the man defeated in the presidential election is vowing to use his power in parliament to block every move the president makes. And Jokowi himself, despite his credentials as a democrat and his success as a mayor, has little national or international experience. He also will be spending most of these first months trying to bolster his support in parliament and pick off members of Prabowo’s coalition rather than getting down to governing and policy. Given Jokowi’s mayoral background and his lack of experience in regional and international affairs, his first months in office likely will prove vastly different from those of his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who from the beginning of his presidency saw himself as a regional and international statesman and who sought to make Indonesia the preeminent regional power again. Expect Jokowi instead to focus on these pressing domestic needs: Infrastructure With his mayoral background, physical infrastructure is a natural fit as one of Jokowi’s first major initiatives. Jokowi has spoken repeatedly of the deteriorating state of Indonesia’s basic infrastructure, and already has assembled a team of advisors who can help lay out strategies to streamline permitting for construction, land acquisition, and road building, and to find the budget to build about 1,300 miles of new roads and to upgrade the biggest airports. Although not a glamorous issue, Indonesia’s poor infrastructure is one of the three main reasons why, despite its size and growing workforce, it remains a minnow in attracting investment outside of natural resources. Corruption Corruption is the second of Indonesia’s three huge obstacles to higher economic growth. (The third, poor quality of public education, is the hardest to address, and Jokowi’s education reform strategies are vague at best.) The country is routinely ranked by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt in Asia, down alongside other, far poorer nations like Cambodia and Myanmar, and well below regional competitors like Malaysia and Thailand. Known for his clean image and working-class background, Jokowi surely will make fighting corruption another top priority. He became famous in his mayoral positions for dropping in on bureaucrats unannounced and also sacking them for poor performance and/or corruption. Still, a clean reputation is not enough; Yudhoyono also had a relatively clean reputation when he became president and vowed to fight graft. During Yudhoyono’s presidency, the corruption eradication commission did take on some high-profile targets, including members of Yudhoyono’s party (and soon, it is rumored, Yudhoyono’s son). To his credit, Yudhoyono did not stop these investigations, but he also did little to improve the reach of the commission or to strengthen other anti-corruption institutions. Jokowi’s reputation will be important—he will have to keep members of his party in line, including some of the most notoriously corrupt politicians in Indonesia—but to succeed where Yudhoyono made little progress, he will have to take steps to strengthen institutions, rather than just touting his personal cleanness. Some of Jokowi’s advisors say he will start with his trademark tours of bureaucrats’ offices, state enterprises, and other official buildings, with the media in tow, and also may try to cull a list of dirty officials, including some with ties to PDI-P (Jokowi’s party) who could be sacked early on. Still, these goals will be hard to achieve, especially since it remains unclear whether Jokowi or party head Megawati Sukarnoputri are really in charge of Jokowi’s party.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Thai junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha appointed prime minister. In a 191-0 vote on Thursday, Thailand’s rubber-stamp legislature named as prime minister the general who in May led the military coup of Thailand’s elected government. General Prayuth awaits an expected endorsement from King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Some have described Thailand’s new system as one of “soft dictatorship,” where the military guides the democracy. The increase of military power in Thailand is one example of recent regression from the previously growing democracies in Southeast Asia. 2. Indonesian court affirms Joko Widodo’s victory. After a month of uncertainty, Indonesia’s constitutional court rejected a legal challenge to president-elect Joko Widodo’s victory, clearing the final hurdle for him to take office in October. Claims by Prabowo Subianto, who lost the presidential election in July, that the election was marred by “massive, structured and systematic fraud” were discarded due to a lack of evidence. The court did acknowledge claims of voting irregularities in remote provinces, but firmly upheld that a revote would still not overturn the election results. As police clashed with protesters in the hours leading up to the court’s decision, concerns that the transfer of power will be anything but calm linger. 3. Sri Lanka refuses to cooperate with the United Nations war crimes investigation. Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa announced that United Nations investigators will be denied entry into Sri Lanka to probe alleged war crimes committed during the last stages of the civil war by Sri Lankan authorities and the Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. As many as forty-thousand Tamil civilians are believed to have been killed in the final stage of the twenty-six-year civil war, many in no-fire zones agreed upon with the UN. The UN investigative team still plans to move forward, relying on Skype interviews and satellite imagery to carry out the investigation. The team is expected to present its findings to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2015. 4. China levies record fine on Japanese auto parts maker under anti-monopoly law. China’s anti-monopoly regulator, the National Reform and Development Commission (NRDC), fined twelve Japanese companies 1.24 billion yuan (US$202 million), the largest fine ever levied under the 2008 anti-trust law. The NRDC’s investigation revealed that the companies had colluded to reduce competition and establish favorable pricing. Earlier in the week, German carmaker Mercedes-Benz was found guilty of manipulating the price of spare parts; the likely penalty was not publicized. China’s regulators have been increasing pressure on foreign multinationals in the past couple years, most likely to reduce competition for domestic companies. 5. Landslides in Japan kill thirty-nine. At least thirty-nine people, including two children and one first responder, have been confirmed dead after severe rains triggered over thirty landslides in Hiroshima early Wednesday morning. Fifty-one were still missing as of Thursday, as evacuation orders went out to 106,000 residents in twenty-five locations in Hiroshima. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sent over 600 self-defense force personnel to the area, which experienced a record 8.5 inches of rainfall in just three hours. A similar disaster in June 1999 killed twenty people in the same area and prompted legislation to require prefectural governments take more precautions against potential landslides. Bonus: Taiwanese restaurant under fire for naming “Nazi” pasta dish. Taiwan, home to airplane and toilet-themed restaurants, encountered a scandal after a Taipei restaurant named a dish “Long Live the Nazis.” The dish was meant to evoke German themes because it contains sausage as the primary ingredient, said the manager, and “it never occurred to us that the word Nazi would stir up such controversy.” Both the Israeli and German representatives to Taiwan expressed regret at the choice. The restaurant has apologized and changed the dish’s name to the (still head-scratching) “Long Live Purity.”

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. China cracks down on U.S. technology companies. Beijing has begun warning Chinese officials to stop buying U.S. information technology, including antivirus defense by Symantec (as well as Russian Kaspersky Lab), Apple products, and Microsoft software, for national security reasons. China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce conducted surprise inspections of Microsoft’s China offices, saying that it suspected monopolistic practices. The probe now includes consulting firm Accenture, which consults for Microsoft on financial issues. Beijing also banned its officials from buying iPads and other Apple products [Chinese]. China has a long history of tension with Microsoft and other U.S. technology companies, which has been exacerbated since Edward Snowden began releasing information about NSA practices that target China. 2. Maritime disputes between China and its neighbors continue to deepen. China has lodged a protest against Japan after Japanese fighter jets allegedly shadowed Chinese planes in China’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea, the latest flare-up between the two neighbors. According to China’s defense ministry (Japan has yet to comment on the incident), a large group of Japanese fighters approached a routine Chinese air patrol in the ADIZ and attempted to shadow the patrol planes. The incident comes on the heels of the release of Japan’s 2014 defense white paper, which highlights Tokyo’s concern over China’s military modernization. Meanwhile, state media reported that China plans to construct five lighthouses in the South China Sea, at least two of which are in waters also claimed by Vietnam. The move contradicts a U.S. call, supported by the Philippines, to freeze all activities that could further stoke tensions. 3. Indonesia bans ISIS, cracks down on radical Islamism. The world’s largest Muslim country condemned the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Sunni extremist organization that has taken over large parts of Iraq and Syria and killed thousands of civilians. The country ordered a ban on YouTube videos associated with or endorsing the group. Jakarta believes that there are about thirty Indonesians enlisted in ISIS ranks; a recent video on YouTube showed an Indonesia jihadist encouraging other Indonesians to join the fight. ISIS supporters also held a rally in Jakarta in March and disrupted a carnival in the city of Solo in June. Neighboring Malaysia is also attempting to combat the pull of ISIS; in April, officials arrested a dozen men trying to leave to fight in Syria, but failed to prevent one young man from going to Iraq, where he carried out a suicide attack that killed twenty-five soldiers. 4. Modi moves on economic reforms. On Wednesday, India’s cabinet approved foreign investment in the railway industry and raised the cap on investment in the defense sector. The decision to allow 100 percent foreign direct investment in the railway industry will help modernize the underperforming rail network in India. The Indian government hopes the decision to raise the cap in the defense sector will boost its indigenous defense production, although foreign investors were hoping for at least a 51 percent ceiling. The plan to open both sectors was laid out in the national budget last month with the goal of attracting international capital and expertise. 5. Japan sees record deficit for first half of 2014. Japan’s Ministry of Finance announced on August 8 a current account deficit of about 508 billion yen (US$50 billion), the first time since 1985 that Japan has registered a deficit for the January-to-June period and the largest deficit ever for a half-year term. The deficit has been largely attributed to a drop in exports that has failed to pick up; exports dropped 2 percent from a year earlier and imports rose 8.4 percent. Trade balance, which is included in the current account, has registered a deficit for twelve months straight through June this year. The reported deficit has raised doubts about the efficacy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s strategy for reviving the lagging Japanese economy. BONUS: Myanmar deports Canadian tourist over Buddha tattoo. After a photo of the tattoos on the tourist’s leg, uploaded by a Myanmar local citizen, went viral on Facebook, local authorities escorted the tourist in Rangoon to the airport. Myanmar faces Buddhist-Muslim conflict and many consider the lower body unclean. Other countries have shown sensitivity to religious tattoos; in 2011, the Thai culture minister considered banning Buddha tattoos from all Thai tattoo parlors.

This blog post was authored by Timothy F. Higgins, a graduate of the University of St. Andrews with an MA in political philosophy. The recent presidential victory of Joko Widodo (popularly known as “Jokowi”) has the potential to be a watershed moment in Southeast Asian politics. For the first time in Indonesia’s (albeit short) history as an independent nation, control of its government will pass from one democratically elected leader to another in relative peace. This is encouraging for two reasons. First, the electorate has not been seduced by the burly militarist narrative of rival candidate Probowo Subianto. In a region that sits in the shadow of an increasingly aggressive China, it would be tempting to opt for Subianto, the nationalist strong-man, over Jokowi, the pragmatic governor of Indonesia’s economic hub, Jakarta. Second, it shows that the framework exists in Indonesia for a politician to rise through the ranks based on merit as a public servant rather than pedigree and political connections. Subianto is the optimal characterization of Indonesia’s political elite: he made his career leading the special forces units that carried out brutal anti-Suharto crackdowns, and later marrying the then-president’s daughter. By contrast, Jokowi grew up in the slums of Surakarta (also known as “Solo”) before building and running his own furniture business, and ultimately winning the race for mayor of his hometown. Jokowi owes much of his political success to the decentralized structure of Indonesia’s democracy. Born partly out of necessity—Indonesia is sprawled across more than 17,000 islands—and partly in reaction to a history of Jakarta-based dictatorships, this decentralization has given local governors greater autonomy, and thus the opportunity to excel. This is exactly what Jokowi did when he was in charge of his home-city of Solo, and later in Jakarta, where he made a point of tackling generally populist issues. Advocating improved quality of life for the average Jakartan, he oversaw a boost in healthcare and education spending, and initiated construction on long-defunct public transit systems. In a pointed effort to make Jakarta’s bureaucracy more transparent, he published records of government hirings complete with test scores and salaries. But now that Jokowi sits at the head of the government apparatus, he may find this decentralization to be his biggest challenge. If every politician in Indonesia shared his scruples, the country would be a fairer and more efficient place. Unfortunately, graft and government cronyism are deeply embedded in politics across the archipelago. Corruption is like a cancer; it is easier to address when contained in one area. Cutting these practices and practitioners out of the political process will be a massive challenge across Indonesia’s sprawling two million square kilometers, particularly since Jokowi cannot count on much cooperation from the police or the military, given his recent presidential adversary. Apart from the traditional methods of fines, firings, or imprisonments, the strongest deterrent against corruption may be the example set by Jokowi himself. The fact that a public servant can win Indonesia’s highest office through honest, results-driven governance provides encouragement to politicians with good intentions, but who are uncertain about whether sticking to the straight and narrow is worth it. This message is spreading more easily, too: internet users have more than double in the last four years, increasing from 6.9 percent in 2009 to 15.8 in 2013 (Indonesia still lags well behind the global average, which was at 38.1 percent last year). Ultimately, it is unrealistic to expect Jokowi to excise government corruption and inefficiencies across Indonesia in only five years. The country is too vast, too disjointed, and too populous to make that kind of fundamental change in such a short period of time. But Jokowi’s ability to win the presidential election is, in itself, a victory over corruption, and hopefully his example will serve as a guide and inspiration to others looking to emulate his accomplishment.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Meat scandal erupts in China. Shanghai Husi Food Co., a Chinese food supplier owned by the Illinois-based global food processor OSI Group Inc., has been shown to have repackaged old meat and changed expiration dates before shipping it to retailers. Some of the world’s best-known chain restaurants, including McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks, were sold the rotten meat and have been forced to alter their supply chains or cancel the sale of some products entirely. The Shanghai police have detained five employees of Shanghai Husi, and the head of the OSI Group has accepted “responsibility for these missteps.” 2. Jokowi declared winner of Indonesian election, but rival rejects results. In the weeks after the July 9 Indonesian presidential election, conflicting “quick counts” led to dueling declarations of victory by candidates Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, and his opponent Prabowo Subianto. Although most quick counts projected Jokowi as the winner, Prabowo remained insistent that he was leading, citing four pollsters favorable to him. After the tabulation of around 136 million votes by the General Elections Commission, on Tuesday night, Jokowi was officially announced as the winner of the election, taking 53 percent of the vote. Prabowo, claiming the election was illegitimate, will appeal the results to the Constitutional Court, but it is doubtful that the court will rule in his favor as the election is generally regarded as free and fair. 3. Taiwanese plane crashes during emergency landing. More than forty people were killed when a TransAsia Airways passenger plane tried to land in the Taiwanese Penghu Islands amid rain and lightning. Twelve injured passengers were rushed to the emergency room but the rest are feared to be dead. The cause of the crash is still under investigation, but inclement weather and technical failures are likely contributing factors. The Taiwan-based airline has been involved in a number of incidents since 2002, when a cargo plane crashed into the sea. This incident is one of three aviation tragedies that have shocked the world in the last week. 4. Japan to join U.S.-India military exercises. Naval vessels from the United States, India, and Japan began the annual Malabar Exercise in the northern Pacific on Thursday. This marks the third time that New Delhi has invited Tokyo to participate in what is normally an annual bilateral exercise between India and the United States. The exercises have brought the ire of China, whose own naval presence has become increasingly assertive in the region, but all Malabar participants maintain that the exercises are not aimed at containing or countering Beijing. Both India and Japan are also currently participating in the U.S.-hosted Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, naval exercise off the coast of Hawaii, where, for the first time, China is also participating. 5. Thai junta adopts interim constitution. Thailand’s junta won approval from King Bhumibol Adulyadej for a provisional constitution that will pave the way for a new legislature and interim government. Under the constitution, the junta has the authority to handpick 220 legislative members, who will then appoint a prime minster and thirty-five cabinet members. In addition to exonerating the junta for its actions since the May 22 coup, the constitution calls for the formation of a reform committee tasked with approving a permanent constitution before elections can be held. While the document is a first step toward restoring electoral democracy in Thailand, the junta will continue to hold substantial power even after the cabinet and legislature take office in September. Bonus: Inflatable animals in China gone wild. A giant inflatable toad unveiled in Beijing has been purged from the Chinese internet after Chinese bloggers photoshopped eyeglasses on the toad, comparing the creature to former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Elsewhere in China, a hunt has begun for the toad’s counterpart—Dutch artist Florentijin Hofman’s giant rubber duck—after floodwaters sent the duck floating away on the Nanming river in Guizhou.

Certified as the winner of Indonesia’s presidential election by the country’s election commission, Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, has a tough road ahead of him. To defeat challenges to and establish his authority as president, Jokowi will have to work quickly and operate, at least at first, in a style that is not his norm. The former Jakarta governor is a low-key politician, uncomfortable making weighty stump speeches, and unused to the gravitas that comes with the presidency; he has a mayoral style and prefers walking the streets, talking to people, and coming up with pragmatic solutions to problems. But now, Jokowi will have to move outside his comfort zone if he is to establish his legitimacy. For one, he and other leaders of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) should move quickly to logroll other parties into joining their coalition in parliament. The Golkar Party already seems uneasy with the “permanent coalition” its leaders had declared with the party of Jokowi’s rival, Subianto Prabowo, and Golkar should be the first target for PDI-P to bring over to its side. Several of the Islamic parties, too, probably could be won over to the PDI-P coalition in these early days of the Jokowi presidency. Though PDI-P leaders are uncomfortable allying themselves with some of the Islamic parties, Jokowi himself is personally popular with the rank and file of several Islamic parties, who officially backed Prabowo’s coalition only because their leaders had made deals with Prabowo. (Prabowo was never a natural choice for the Islamic parties anyway; he is divorced, not particularly devout, and backed by his rich, born-again Christian brother.) PDI-P and Jokowi should overcome their hesitancy about these alliances and try to tie them up as soon as possible. Jokowi also should announce what aspects of his policy agenda he intends to push forward immediately. Although he prefers to canvass the public, understand public concerns, and then craft a policy agenda at a slow pace and pressure the bureaucracy to implement it—a very democratic type of strategy—Jokowi does not have time to wait, as he did in Solo and Jakarta. He should immediately launch one or two of his highest priorities, stealing some of Prabowo’s possible argument that Jokowi is unprepared to be president and unpresidential in style. Using his first one hundred days to address some of the economic nationalism concerns that Prabowo has raised—and that clearly resonate with Indonesians—also would help Jokowi. The president-elect and his allies also should lean on the current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), to use all the powers of his office to remind Indonesians that the election is over, barring any judicial challenges. Although his two terms have been somewhat disappointing, SBY clearly wants to be seen in Indonesia and the region as a statesman, as someone who upheld and strengthened Indonesian democracy. Whether he actually did so is debatable, but Jokowi and other PDI-P leaders need to play on SBY’s desire to leave as a statesman. Facilitating a smooth transition and not allowing Prabowo to undermine Jokowi’s first days through street actions and other means would go far toward enhancing SBY’s reputation. Finally, since Prabowo is almost sure to challenge the election verdict in the courts, Jokowi and PDI-P should have their own, Bush v. Gore-style, team of expert lawyers in place imminently to argue before the Constitutional Court. If they have not already assembled such a team, Jokowi and PDI-P will be one step behind Prabowo.

The past week has been so busy with events, both tragic and hopeful, related to Southeast Asia, that I barely have time to keep up with the news.  A few short thoughts: 1. Is Prabowo Going to Concede? No way. Prabowo Subianto is now tacitly hinting in interviews that, on July 22, he might be declared the loser of Indonesia’s presidential election, and he is now using interviews to argue that, whatever the result announced on July 22, it is likely a fraud. This is a shift from his earlier position stating simply that he was going to win. On July 22 he will expand on his fraud argument and file a case to the Constitutional Court. Jokowi – and Indonesia – better be prepared for a long and drawn-out legal contest. 2. Should Malaysia Airlines Have Used a Different Route for MH17? Obviously, most of the news about MH17 has focused, naturally, on who brought down the plane, who was behind the missile strike, the grief of relatives of the dead, and the long-term implications for great power politics in Eurasia. There has been a kind of truce in Malaysian politics, as everyone in Malaysia is stunned by the tragedy; this kind of truce did not happen with the previous disaster, the disappearance of MH370 – opposition politicians and many commentators (including myself) blasted the Malaysian government for their inept handling of MH370. I think that this truce in Malaysian politics is likely to break down next week, as relatives of the dead from MH17, already angry at what they perceive as government stonewalling about information (though I think that the Malaysian government has done nothing wrong this time around), ask more forcefully why Malaysia Airlines was still flying through airspace above war-torn eastern Ukraine. True, some other Asian carriers also had continued flying through this airspace, probably because it was the cheapest way to get from Europe to Southeast Asia, but other regional carriers, like Qantas and Cathay Pacific, had been avoiding eastern Ukraine’s airspace for months now. Expect family members to put more pressure on the Najib government this week to more fully explain why MH17 was still flying the route. 3. Does China’s Moving a Rig out of Disputed South China Sea Waters Matter? Last week, China moved the China National Petroleum Corporation rig in waters disputed with Vietnam to an area of the South China Sea closer to China. The decision defused, to some extent, the growing tension in the South China Sea between China and Vietnam, which had sparked riots in Vietnam and clashes on the waters. The move was touted by some Southeast Asian analysts as a sign that China is adopting a more moderate approach to South China Sea disputes. Some speculated that Beijing might even be willing to finally agree to a formal code of conduct on the sea or to address Southeast Asian countries’ concerns through international arbitration. (The Philippines has taken its sea dispute with China to international arbitration, but China thus far has essentially refused to respond to the arbitration.) I really doubt that China is going to modify its South China Sea stance in any substantial way. Beijing is never going to agree to go to international arbitration, which would set a precedent that could be used by other countries in disputes with China over seas or land borders. And there are no signs that China is going to make any real moves toward a formal code of conduct on the South China Sea either. Instead, the removal simply signals that, for now, Beijing wants to cool tensions with Hanoi, Manila, the United States, and Jakarta, which also was becoming increasingly angry over Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea. Expect no change in Beijing’s position that it claims most of the South China Sea, and expect another rig to be moved into disputed waters in the next six months to a year. 4. Is Yingluck Shinawatra Going to Return to Thailand? Thailand’s junta last week allowed Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to leave the country to attend a party for her brother Thaksin in France. She took her only child with her. During her absence from Thailand, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) recommended that Yingluck be indicted for dereliction of duty in relation to the former government’s rice subsidy program. The former prime minister, ousted by the May coup, has vowed to return to Thailand to fight the charges. I’m not so sure that will happen. In Paris, Yingluck’s brother, in exile himself, might counsel her to stay abroad as she is almost sure to be found guilty as long as the junta runs the country.

As I have previously blogged, unless Prabowo Subianto is able to steal four to six million votes in the days before the official vote tally is released, an unlikely possibility, Jakarta governor Joko Widodo will be declared the winner of the presidential election sometime next week. However, Prabowo is not going to go quietly; in the days since the vote he has repeatedly showed the thin-skinned, bombastic, dictatorial-type personality that scared many Indonesians about the prospect of a Prabowo victory. After Election Day, he lashed out at Indonesian journalists, accusing them of being biased against him and warning one reporter to watch out if she didn’t want to “be hurt.” Prabowo conducted an angry interview with the BBC that sounded more like a conspiratorial tirade; in a brief interview with the Wall Street Journal last Friday, Prabowo offered more conspiratorial warnings that “imperialist” tycoons and unnamed foreigners were plotting to take over Indonesia. Thus, of course, Indonesia needs a military strongman to protect it against such predation. Still, even if Prabowo is unsuccessful in getting himself into the presidential palace, and if many of his claims defy all logic (he rails against predation even though his campaign is backed by most of Indonesia’s old guard Suharto-era tycoons), his post-election actions are going to make a potential Jokowi presidency much harder than it otherwise would have been. (And it was never going to be easy – if Jokowi really wants to make a break from politics as usual, curbing the power of tycoons and other Suharto-era elites, he would have an enormous task on his hands.)  Prabowo’s actions will undermine a President Jokowi’s legitimacy and, likely, leave a mass of voters who, even after the election is certified, will never believe that Prabowo actually lost, creating potential unrest throughout a Jokowi term. Such a scenario happened in Mexico (albeit with the left-leaning candidate the one unwilling to accept the election results) in the squeaker 2006 presidential election, when supporters of candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to believe their man had lost, in part because of the candidate’s own unwillingness to accept defeat, and in part because Mexico truly did have a history of thrown elections and rigged vote counting, as Indonesia does. Lopez Obrador supporters massed in major Mexican cities and launched other types of civil disobedience to protest the victory by Felipe Calderon. The stand-off after the election heightened partisanship, cast doubt onto Mexico’s vote counting and monitoring institutions and its young democracy itself, and made it harder for Calderon to govern in such a charged post-election atmosphere. The post-election situation in Indonesia could be worse. Lopez Obrador, though imbued with something of a messiah complex himself, and willing to drag on the post-election combat far too long, was overall a relatively clean politician and certainly one without deep ties to armed organizations. Lopez Obrador publicly discouraged his followers from using violence in the post-election period. Prabowo, on the other hand, has well-documented links to Indonesian criminal leaders, an alliance with the notoriously violent paramilitary group Islamic Defenders Front, and a history as a special forces commander that is allegedly rife with human rights abuses of all sorts. Prabowo seems, from all public accounts and private conversations I have had with his associates, to honestly believe that the “real count” in the election shows he has won. They say that even if the Indonesian election commission announces next week that Jokowi won, Prabowo will remain convinced that he was defrauded and that he won the “real count,” as he calls it. His conviction, several Prabowo associates say, has only been reinforced in recent days as the former general’s closest allies continue to tell him that he surely won the election, while any independent and dissenting voices in his circle have been shut out in the days since Indonesia went to the polls on July 9.

In the wake of July 9’s voting in Indonesia’s presidential elections, both candidates, Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, and Prabowo Subianto have declared that, according to quick counts, they have won the presidential election. For those who are not familiar with Indonesian elections, a quick count is not the same thing as an exit poll, common in Western elections; a primer on quick counts is available on New Mandala. Of course, as has been widely reported, the quick counts showing Jokowi and his running mate won are regarded as highly credible, while Prabowo’s quick counts are regarded as unreliable or, worse, essentially paid for by Prabowo’s team to deliver whatever data he wants. This disparity has not stopped Prabowo from claiming victory, and from defying promises he made to outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono not to increase the tension in Jakarta in the days leading up to the release of the official vote tally. Instead of trying to help tamp down tensions, Prabowo has appeared on the BBC’s World News Impact and given a particularly boisterous interview, and he has appeared on other media touting the fact that the “real count” showed that he is leading the election. He also appeared before a rally of supporters in Jakarta late last week, including militants from the Islamic Defenders Front. Prabowo whipped them up into cheering for him as the new president of Indonesia. Jokowi appears to have basically stuck to the promise he also made to SBY not to increase tensions before the release of the official tally, which is due to be released on July 20 or 21. Jokowi appears to be counting on Prabowo being, as Jokowi has put it a “statesman” in accepting Prabowo’s likely defeat. Good luck. More dangerously, Jokowi’s organization, which has relied on volunteers throughout its terrible election campaign, as compared to Prabowo’s well-financed and highly organized operation, seems ready to rely primarily on volunteers to monitor the vote counting around the archipelago. As a result, most analyses suggest that Jokowi is likely to have observers at a smaller fraction of vote counting sites than Prabowo’s team will. Fewer counting observers will potentially make it easier for Prabowo’s allies to commit voter fraud, particularly in Prabowo strongholds where the retired general already has won the support of powerful local officials who can meddle in the vote counting process. The most thorough analysis of how Prabowo might try to steal the election is available here. It seems staggeringly unwise and naïve for Jokowi not to keep his foot on his rival’s throat after all credible quick counts suggested that the Jakarta governor had won the election. Sure, as Aspinall and Mietzner note in their analysis of Prabowo’s post-election game plan, it is going to be difficult for Prabowo to steal the election, given what appears to be a relatively comfortable margin of victory for Jokowi. Stealing the election could mean fraudulently shifting as many as six million votes, not an easy task even for the most well-financed, connected, and organized campaign. And to be sure, part of Jokowi’s appeal is his image as a clean, positive, and new type of politician, one with no direct links to the Suharto period and who does not get into the gutter that so characterizes Indonesian campaigns. So Jokowi can’t exactly copy Prabowo’s tactics. Yet there is a difference between being clean and being naïve. Jokowi does not need to buy off local officials and defraud voters in the next ten days. But, just as during the campaign he should have quickly rebutted false charges against him (that he was Christian, that he was Chinese, etc) in the post-campaign counting period he should more proactively state why his quick counts are definitive, and he should rally his supporters to be present at every counting station, particularly those in areas known to be Prabowo strongholds. That he is not doing so, in the most hotly contested presidential election in modern Indonesian history, is a huge mistake.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Indonesians await official results of presidential election. Joko Widodo, known popularly as Jokowi, seems to have won Indonesia’s presidential election against Prabowo Subianto, a self-described military strongman. Though unofficial quick count tallies appear split on the winner of the election, the more respected polling firms point to a Jokowi victory; the official results will be released on July 22. The campaign was one of the dirtiest in Indonesia’s recent history: smear campaigns claimed that Jokowi was both Christian and ethnic Chinese (he is in fact Muslim and ethnic Javanese), and Prabowo was accused of human rights abuses during his time as commander of the Indonesia’s special forces. Indonesia is trying to move its economy towards manufacturing and away from commodity exports; in the next few years, the country will likely need to curtail its fuel subsidies and restructure its natural resource strategy. 2. China and the United States hold annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing. During two days of high-level meetings, U.S. secretary of state John Kerry called upon Chinese vice premier Wang Yang, Chinese state councilor Yang Jiechi, and other officials to support the creation of a legally binding code of conduct to enforce rules of navigation and inhibit unilateral actions in the South and East China Seas. Beijing expressed its commitment to reducing currency intervention and increasing transparency of its foreign-exchange operations, a step that U.S. treasury secretary John Lew says would make the yuan’s value more market-determined. After inking a series of pacts on climate change, both sides announced their intention to reach an agreement this year on core issues of a bilateral investment treaty. Secretary Kerry said that he had a “frank exchange” with China on cybersecurity issues, as U.S. media published allegations that China hacked into computer systems at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as U.S. think tanks.The two sides are expected to continue talks when President Obama visits China in November to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting. 3. Japanese defense minister visits the United States. Japanese minister of defense Itsunori Onodera is in the United States this week, touring an F-35 plant in Texas before heading to Washington, DC. There he will attend a number of high-level meetings to discuss recent events on the Korean Peninsula and the Abe administration’s recent proposal to reinterpret Article IX of its constitution. Onodera will meet with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, to discuss the proposed reinterpretation of Japan’s constitution and the implications for the U.S.-Japan alliance. The Abe cabinet announced its proposal, which could potentially allow for a greater degree of military cooperation with the United States, last week; it elicited a mix of strong criticism from some of its neighbors (China in particular) and support from allies in the region.Onodera and Hagel will also discuss what the reinterpretation could mean for the challenges facing U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral cooperation as well as the most recent provocations from North Korea. 4. Chinese and South Korean presidents meet in Seoul. Chinese president Xi Jinping visited South Korean president Park Geun-hye in Seoul last week, reciprocating Park’s visiting to Beijing last year. This is the first time a new Chinese president has visited South Korea before North Korea, marking a possible shift in Beijing’s approach to the Korean peninsula; China has historically favored Pyongyang over Seoul. China’s increasing economic ties with South Korea appears to be a strong driver of this shift, and during the visit the two leaders agreed to sign a bilateral free trade agreement by the end of this year. The two leaders also spoke out against North Korea’s continued development of nuclear weapons program as well as Japan’s recent relaxing of sanctions on the DPRK and review of its collective self-defense policy. The meeting received lukewarm response domestically and comes at a time when South Korean public opinion of President Park is on the decline, accusing her of using empty rhetoric and lack of clear tactics. 5. Australia facing international scrutiny for rejecting refugees. After two hundred Sri Lankan asylum seekers were intercepted in Australian waters in June, the Australian government returned forty-one refugees to Sri Lanka where they could face “rigorous imprisonment.” The government assessed and rejected the claims for asylum while at sea, bringing Australia under even harsher international criticism for not processing the individuals ashore. The United Nations Refugee Agency and various rights organizations have expressed concern over the situation, but so far it has not been confirmed whether Australia is in violation of international law. More than one thousand Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been rejected and returned by the Australian government since 2012. Bonus: Japan unveils first robotic newscaster. Skynet is coming to a local broadcaster near you. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro at the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at the Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering Science revealed his latest project: a pair of android newscasters. Though the robots’ facial expressions are still somewhat stilted, on the plus side the androids can read the news fluently and aren’t nearly as intimidating as the Terminator.