Two
different eras, two different populists
Aboeprijadi Santoso ; A
journalist living in the Netherlands
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JAKARTA
POST, 28 Maret 2014
With
popular Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo entering the country’s highest
political contest, Indonesia has proceeded through a new era of populism amid
the half-hearted transition from the New Order toward the consolidation of
democracy.
Since there
has basically never been a genuine break in terms of ideology and political
structure since the 1998 Reformasi (Reformation), not surprisingly, many
patterns of political leadership and actions have been both retained and
renewed, shaping a curious mixture of old and new characteristics.
Nowhere
has this been more obvious than with the contradiction between two populist
leaders now competing to lead the nation: Jokowi and Prabowo Subianto.
The 2014
elections — some of the biggest in the world, with 180 million eligible
voters for some 20,000 regional and national representatives — could, for
better or worse, be the promise of a break with the recent past. A promise —
that could either be fulfilled or broken.
The time
has passed when those with celebrated roles during the independence struggle
were destined to rule the state and guide the nation.
With it,
patterns of rule and leadership, with which the ruling elite kept their
domination by dynamic interaction between state and political parties’ mass
mobilization, have gone.
The time
has also passed for the system that replaced it, which came through mass
violence, and went on with threats justified by ideological hegemony and was
maintained by repressive stability and economic development.
Today, a
transition toward decentralization and growing markets in the regions have
resulted in new patterns. Political leaders and legislators now depend on
resources from political and business sectors, and hence they are no longer
only controlled by party bosses.
The
pendulum has thus swung to local and national groups of wealthy capitalists
and oligarchs, the residue of generals from a foregone era, and ambitious
nationalist and religion-based political leaders dominating the contest for
the state and presidency.
But they
all built their resources during the decade of a president, the first in
history, who acquired full, if formal, legitimacy for having been directly
elected for two consecutive periods, yet has largely failed to use it to
better the prospects of the nation.
True,
there has been impressive economic growth and political stability. But the
last decade also demonstrated an intensely felt time of crisis as a result of
the ubiquitous corruption, rising sectarianism, indecisive leadership and
apparent decline of national cohesiveness. Even democracy was blamed when
things were running wild.
All in
all, it has resulted in what is increasingly seen — rightly or wrongly — as
the need of strong state leadership, clean political leaders and a sort of
national re-awakening.
Both
Jokowi and in particular Prabowo have made a lot out of this. Both — aged 52
and 62 respectively — grew up during the New Order era, but learned different
lessons, and effectively took quite different fruit from it.
The
owner of a local furniture business, Jokowi entered bureaucracy as he was
elected to lead a medium-sized city and became popular as he took his job
seriously and succeeded in gaining public faith.
As in
Surakarta, in Jakarta he has come to be seen as “one of us” by men and women
on the streets.
Many may
be skeptical of his capability to lead the nation since the urban problems he
faced will not provide him with the best framework with which to lead the
nation, but his supporters and others have welcomed this precisely as a great
challenge for a new leader in new era.
Jokowi
comes from a simple family, not from a “who’s who” of public figures. Little,
if any, public concern has been expressed about him simply because he is
known as being clean of corruption. Above all, he is clean of human rights
violations, of which the New Order has been most notorious.
In
almost all of these respects, Prabowo has been the exact opposite of Jokowi.
A former military leader turned politician who was brought up abroad, versus
a homegrown local merchant turned bureaucrat-cum-politician.
Prabowo
has never been active in public service other than the military, nor has he
ever been elected to any political office. He comes from a well-known
aristocratic family — the grandson of a hero and proud son of a renowned
economist, once involved in a regional rebellion.
A former
general, the only general ever sacked by the corps in the nation’s history,
and former son-in-law of the late president Soeharto, he has been politically
raised from the very heart of the New Order.
Thus,
Prabowo could not have known what it’s like to live a simple life, build a
career from the bottom up and be elected for public office — just as Jokowi
could hardly imagine what it’s like to be a privileged son and a notorious
general allegedly involved in war crimes in Aceh and East Timor.
Jokowi
is a native son loyal to his homeland in the way Prabowo never was, as the
latter once sought a year-long refuge abroad in self-exile in Jordan.
Jokowi
played by the rules of the game, while Prabowo repeatedly and proudly
expressed regret for not having attempted a coup d’état when Soeharto
resigned. Witnesses, however, said he did attempt it, but failed.
Prabowo
never indicated any interest in finding activists who went missing between
1997-1998, for which he was responsible, while Jokowi seems curious about the
fate of the missing poet Wiji Thukul and his friends.
If
Jokowi has grown popular as a modest but successful bureaucrat, Prabowo has
become a wealthy and successful patron of his political party. One grew from
the bottom of society, the other from the very heart of state power.
These
differences are significant and have historical parallels. Like the first and
fourth presidents, Sukarno and Abdurrahman Wahid, Jokowi is a product of the
dynamic of his time and the grassroots community that he comes from.
Prabowo,
like Soeharto, almost exclusively spent his life and career within the
military apparatus and derived his drive and spirit from it. Indeed his party
captains have publicly expressed sympathy with Soeharto‘s rule.
This is
not just a matter of person and personality. It is Indonesia’s recent history
that made them what they are.
Moreover,
the legacy of the New Order and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s
administration has shaped conditions in which Jokowi’s and Prabowo’s populist
drive could grow.
Jokowi’s
background and journey may be a sign of a new era — just as Prabowo’s
resemble a recent past. One may represent hope while the other represents
fear, or a dubious mix of both. ●
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