'Major reform challenges'

Joko "Jokowi" Widodo was sworn in as president on Monday, October 20, after a lengthy election process which included a court challenge by his opponent, ex-general Prabowo Subianto. But there are many more challenges awaiting the new president: a slowing economy, and red tape are but a few of the issues. Jokowi is the country's first president to not come from the military or political elite, and many have questioned his ability to lead the country.

In addition, the 53-year-old former Jakarta governor will also have to deal with a hostile parliament, given that most of its members are aligned with the losing candidate. Although Prabowo recently congratulated his opponent, saying he would ask his followers to support the new government, he also warned that he and his party "will not hesitate to criticize."

Gregory Poling, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, says in a DW interview Jokowi's biggest political challenge remains to build a coalition as he still has the support of only a minority of four parties in the parliament. As for Prabowo's pledge of support to the government, it is too soon to know how seriously it should be taken, adds Poling.

DW: Jokowi is the country's first president to come from outside the political and military elite, what are the main political challenges awaiting him?

Gregory Poling: The biggest challenge remains coalition management. Nearly three months after the election, observers had hoped to see more success on this front, but to date Jokowi still has the support of only a minority coalition of four parties in the parliament. The opposition coalition led by defeated candidate Prabowo Subianto's Gerindra Party has outmaneuvered him at every step and passed legislation, including getting rid of elections for local leaders, that indicate it plans to be a largely obstructionist bloc in parliament.

Jokowi's outsider credentials made him appealing to the electorate during the campaign, but they also meant that he lacked the political and patronage networks that other national politicians in Indonesia enjoy. This in combination with his campaign trail promise to avoid trading cabinet positions - which have traditionally been the number one inducement to support a president - for support from other parties left him disadvantaged in attempting to draw opposition parties into his government.

Despite his failures to-date in coalition building, the fight is far from done. The United Development Party (PPP) appears to be on the cusp of joining Jokowi's coalition when its feuding leadership works out the results of their dueling national conventions sometime this month. Jokowi also remains hopeful that he can pull President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrats, who are only unofficially affiliated with Prabowo's coalition, into government.

And the biggest prize - the Golkar party - is still in play. It will likely hold its own national convention sometime later this year, during which the supporters of Jokowi's vice president and former Golkar chairperson Jusuf Kalla will seek to oust current chair and close Prabowo ally Aburizal Bakrie. If they succeed, the party will likely come to Jokowi's side, and bring its newly-acquired parliamentary leadership posts with it.

Given that the opposition has a majority in parliament, how will this undermine Jokowi's efforts to push for big reforms?

How large an impediment the Gerindra-led coalition turns out to be will depend on whether or not it can stay together in the months and potentially years ahead. All the parties that supported Prabowo pledged that they would maintain a coalition for five years, whether or not he won, but cracks started to show in that promise almost immediately.

High-ranking officials in Golkar, the Democratic Party, and PPP have all signaled that they would prefer to jump ship and join Jokowi. Of course, if Prabowo can hold onto at least the majority of his coalition, then he will be in a position to be a thorn in Jokowi's side, as he has already been by blocking Jokowi's coalition from snagging any parliamentary speaker or deputy speaker posts and eliminating direct elections for local leaders.

Outgoing President Yudhoyono has been constantly plagued by an obstructionist parliament, and his own coalition partners have often been the worst offenders - an example Jokowi will not want to emulate.

Jokowi and Prabowo held a closed-door meeting on October 17 that was described as friendly. What do you make of Prabowo's recent pledge of support for the government?

In a surprise to pretty much everyone, Prabowo emerged from that discussion promising that Gerindra and its coalition partners would support Jokowi and his new government. However, it is too soon to know how seriously to take that pledge, which was worded vaguely enough to allow quick backtracking should Prabowo decide he would be better served by being antagonistic to the new president. But it is the first sign of accommodation seen from the defeated candidate since the election.

Some have painted PDI-P leader Megawati as Jokowi's puppet master. What is your view on this?

I think anyone other than Jokowi and Megawati who claim to know exactly the nature of their relationship is probably deluding themselves. One thing that seems clear to me is that while Jokowi might be deferential in public, and Megawati might insist that she, as the party leader, is the real power behind the throne, he is not her puppet.

Jokowi's popularity forced Megawati's hand in nominating him for president against her initial wishes, and it was he that won the election, not the PDI-P, which had such a disappointing showing in the April legislative elections.

Many PDI-P cadres are certainly loyal to both Puan Maharani, daughter of the former president, and Megawati. But outside the party loyalists, they are both rather unpopular. When you get right down to it, the PDI-P, and Megawati, need Jokowi more than he needs them. In the end, there will be compromises, but that fact will give the president the upper hand.

What will Jokowi have to do to tackle the widespread problem of corruption?

To be honest, corruption in Indonesia is not something that a single person, even the president, can tackle in one or two terms. The best Jokowi can do, as he did as governor of Jakarta, is to try his best to de-incentivize official corruption and try to crack the public narrative that this is a natural, unavoidable fact of life.

His tendencies in Jakarta to make personal, public spot checks of government offices, take officials to task, and replace them when necessary, will prove useful as president. But the real, long-term fight against corruption will still rely on institutions, not a single president. To that end, the best thing he can do will likely be to support the Corruption Eradication Commission, and make sure that no one, including members of his own coalition, are protected from investigation and prosecution.

Around half of Indonesia's population of 250 million people is poor, what measures need to be implemented to narrow the wealth gap?

The number one reform that Jokowi should implement to narrow the wealth gap is to reverse the disastrous revisions the Yudhoyono administration has made to the national curriculum. If Indonesian children are to be lifted out of poverty over the long-term, they must be raised to compete in a modern globalized world, not prevented from studying science, social studies, and English in primary school.

Healthcare will be the number two priority, and Jokowi as governor has already proven himself a champion of universal, affordable healthcare for the poor. Beyond those two, the best thing the government can do is make the country as a whole more economically competitive.

And the most critical step on that road is to begin addressing Indonesia's woefully inadequate infrastructure, funding for which will require the political will to reduce if not eliminate the costly public fuel subsidies. These are all major challenges.

Analysts often speak of persistent weaknesses in the economy that threaten growth. Many fear that Jokowi may follow a more nationalistic approach in his economic policy. What is your view on this?

All politicians in Indonesia are nationalists to one degree or another - protectionism pays on the campaign trail and is deeply ingrained in the national psyche. Jokowi is no different. But he has also proven himself a pragmatist, and the markets clearly welcomed his victory over Prabowo for a reason. Investing in infrastructure is the number one thing he will need to do for Indonesia's long-term economic growth.

More immediately, he will need to withstand pressures from the most protectionist voices in his coalition. He will likely be unable and unwilling to roll back the recent protectionist moves of the Yudhoyono administration, such as the ban on unprocessed mineral ore exports.

But he has also said he would not cancel investors' contracts and would prefer to renegotiate them once they expire. Holding to that commitment will be vital, as one of the biggest deterrents to investment in Indonesia is the perception that there is not sanctity of contracts.

Many people have set high expectations on Jokowi. How important will it be for him to manage those expectations in the early weeks and months?

Jokowi, much like US President Barack Obama in his first term, is probably fated to disappoint his most ardent supporters. That is just what happens when a new type of politician rides to power in a campaign that bills him as a transformative leader. The important thing for Jokowi will be to show steady, albeit small, progress in important areas - healthcare, education, corruption busting, cutting bureaucratic red tape - while tamping down expectations to a more realistic level.

Gregory Poling is a fellow with the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).