Jokowi’s Failing Legacy

The year 2014, when Indonesian president Joko Widodo won the country’s presidential election by presenting himself as a democratic reformer, a man of humble beginnings who would fight graft and curtail the self-dealing elite politics that dominate Jakarta, seem like a long way away today.

If in the initial parts of his first term, there seemed some hope that Jokowi would turn out to be a real reformer, for most of his second term (Jokowi was re-elected in 2018), he has proven just the opposite. He is undermining democracy, advancing insider politics in which political dynasties are blossoming, cracking down on dissent and tolerance, and weakening anti-graft efforts. For more on Jokowi’s failures, and the possibility of further harm to Indonesian democracy by a possible extension of Jokowi’s term, see my new World Politics Review article here.