The Tragedy of Joko Widodo

In a classic Shakespeare play—or any number of prestige programs from the “peak TV” era—a flaw brings down a tragic hero despite their initial promise. It could be indecision, as in the case of Hamlet. Or immense and unfiltered ambition, like MacBeth. Or over-the-top egocentrism, like Don Draper. All these characters, though, start with sympathy from the audience, charisma, and potential for change.

This brings us to Joko Widodo, or Jokowi. On Sunday, the two-term Indonesian president left office as his onetime rival and now tenuous ally, Prabowo Subianto, was sworn in as the regional giant’s new president. The fact that Jokowi even allied with Prabowo, a man with a history of disdain for Indonesia’s democracy, little secret of his desire to reduce limitations on presidential power, and a long history of alleged abuses during the Suharto era, shows how far Jokowi has fallen. This version of Jokowi starkly contrasts his early image as a supposedly self-made, new Indonesian figure who would reform politics and clean house of politicians like Prabowo.

As I noted in a World Politics piece last month, Jokowi came into office in 2014 on a wave of excitement for change. He seemed like a simple middle-class man without links to Jakarta’s oligarchs and dynastic politicians. But he quickly appeared to realize that many of his proposed reforms to the system might be challenged intensely by entrenched elites. For fear of a quick impeachment, he did not fight hard enough to fortify the country’s anti-corruption authorities, stand up for an expansion of protection for civil and religious rights, or reduce the powers of dynastic and corrupt political blocs, as well as the power of the military.

Instead, as his first term progressed, and certainly into his second term, Jokowi morphed into one of the dynastic, amoral, deal-making, anti-reform types of politicians Indonesians had hoped he would push into the annals of history. After initially promising he had no interest in building a political family dynasty, a sharp contrast from most other Indonesian politicians, Jokowi built one of the country’s most robust and possibly longest-lasting dynasties. One of his sons is vice president, and another attempted to run in regional elections, but Indonesian courts shut him down.

Far from being a graft fighter, Jokowi allowed the country’s anti-corruption commission to wither and undermined it at many turns, doing little to protect it from attacks. Now, corruption has threatened Jokowi’s image. One of his sons is mired in a scandal in which he took a private plane on a flight from Jakarta to Los Angeles provided by Shopee. This mall company planned to build a new mall in Solo, Jokowi’s home base and the city where his son, now vice president, had been mayor. The scandal reeked of influence peddling, further damaging the up-from-the-bootstraps everyman image Jokowi had long cultivated.

Jokowi did little to address the massive environmental problems plaguing Indonesia, resulting in the destruction of forests and the massive burning of peat bogs, which are critical to the environment. He has allowed the continued burning while focusing his intense efforts on sculpting a new capital out of the jungles of Borneo. This process destroyed a significant amount of jungle to build a new capital that might wind up only with government workers and not much else in culture or commerce.

Meanwhile, Jokowi has contributed in multiple other ways to democratic regression in what was once one of the most vital democracies in the region and an example to other developing states. He has done nothing to reduce the power of entrenched parties in parliament. He further surrounded himself with a group of ex-military advisors while giving the military greater control over many aspects of domestic policymaking, which for years was the most powerful and often anti-democratic institution in the country. On foreign policy, never a major interest of Jokowi’s, the president focused on aid and investment into Indonesia but shied away from major crises in the region, including political backsliding in places like Cambodia, let alone the outright coup and civil war in Myanmar.

Unlike in a Shakespearean tragedy, here, the tragic hero is not dying at the end of his time at the center of the play. Instead, he intends to continue wielding massive power over Indonesian politics via his family dynasty, his control of political power brokers in Java, and his power in the Golkar party. Whether he can maintain all those levers remains to be seen, as the new president, Prabowo Subianto, may eventually move to reduce Jokowi’s power.