Indonesia’s new president

Indonesia’s constitutional court has cleared the way for the country’s newly elected president to take office. Foreign and local media accounts of who Joko Widodo is will make many of us president-envy. I am writing about him today because I think we ought to know how the new leader of a regional competitor works.

Of course we know better than to trust the hosannas of foreign media. Widodo is flavor of the month today just as P-Noy once was. But we cannot ignore their enthusiastic reviews. At the very least, the positive impression of foreign media has a way of bringing up positive investor sentiment that’s needed by all developing economies.

In a way, Jokowi, as he wants to be called, is like P-Noy. They both raced to the Presidency in record time. They are both known for their honesty. They are both very popular with their people when they were elected.

They are also very different. The most basic difference is that Jokowi grew up in a riverside slum area while P-Noy is of the landed or haciendero class... our social elite. Jokowi is Indonesia’s Ramon Magsaysay… an everyman who as one account puts it, could be mistaken as someone’s driver.

Jokowi’s political career prepared him for the presidency by starting as Mayor of his town, then Governor of Jakarta before winning the Presidency. P-Noy was congressman and senator, neither positions are executive in nature.

As Mayor and later as Governor, Jokowi has dealt with typical third world urban problems of squatters, floods and traffic congestion. He has introduced and managed programs to address these concerns that, accounts say, have started to make a difference.

Jokowi kickstarted a stalled MRT project and introduced health cards. He has taken hawkers off the streets and into covered markets. When he was given the prize as the third best world mayor, the judges cited his accomplishment of turning his crime-ridden city of Solo into a center for arts and culture.

The big difference between Jokowi and our P-Noy is that the Indonesian leader is hands-on while P-Noy is aloof. Jokowi told BBC’s Haslinda Amin that he spends just two hours a day in his office and spends the rest of it roaming around his domain.

That’s management-by-walking-around. He loves being immersed with his constituents and as the BBC report showed, would think nothing of taking off his shoes and wading barefoot in flooded streets to see for himself what needs to be done.

A president who risks catching leptospirosis is unheard of in our experience. The BBC documentary also showed him inspecting a hospital to talk to patients and learn first hand how the health system is addressing their needs.

P-Noy’s experience before entering politics was helping run a security agency while Jokowi was a small businessman who made his money exporting furniture. P-Noy was thrust into politics because it was the family business, so to speak. Jokowi went into politics because he was sick of the way his city was being run and thought he could do better.

The stakes for Jokowi are high. Indonesia is expected to grow into one of the world’s major economies very soon. The demographics of Indonesian’s young 250 million people excite investors.

Indonesia’s middle class, projected to be 141 million strong by 2020 promises to be a solid consumer base. Jokowi’s problem however, is how to raise another 100 million of his people out of poverty, or at least get them out of a $2 a day existence. 

Jokowi plans to use education as his basic anti poverty tool, aiming to educate every child in every household. He also wants to give every Indonesian a health card.

The other big responsibility on Jokowi’s shoulders is showing the world a secular society in a majority Muslim country is possible. Indonesia, together with Turkey, must show the Muslim world there is an alternative democratic path that offers peace and prosperity.

Is our country capable of producing our own Jokowi? Sure. We have produced Ramon Magsaysay and more recently, Jesse Robredo. Tragedy deprived us of both men prematurely. But there should be more of them working anonymously in some local government unit somewhere.

Indeed, that’s the key. Jakarta Post attributed the rise of Jokowi to a post Suharto democratization and aggressive decentralization. Threatened by secessionists, the Indonesian central government devolved powers to local units, bringing down the responsibility of running government functions to the lowest level.

By doing so, the message was given to those dissatisfied with government to go and take up the challenge of running government themselves at the local level and stop blaming central government. That’s what a dissatisfied Jokowi did.

It isn’t as if we have not tried this approach of devolving powers to local governments. But there must be something wrong with our approach so far.

There must also be something wrong with our approach in selecting our presidents from the ranks of senators rather than from governors or mayors. Senators have not managed a budget, have not been responsible for delivering essential public services or addressing everyday needs of ordinary citizens. They are mostly good only for speeches, public posturing and being the show biz folks many of them once were or still are.

Senators and congressmen are too far removed from daily management of government to have the insights required to meet our common needs. Cabinet members also do not have the sense of urgency of an elected local official to meet such needs as mass transportation.

In Indonesia, it is the Governor of Jakarta rather than a Secretary of Transportation who is responsible for such things as the MRT. That’s the other thing… there is an elected Governor of Jakarta to manage the greater metro area. We have local fiefdoms of shortsighted mayors unable to address metrowide concerns.

Of course we can say Filipinos and Indonesians are different from each other so that comparing Jokowi with P-Noy means nothing. But a Filipino and an Indonesian president face similar challenges.

They face the same challenges from entrenched local elites... Same challenges for inclusive economic growth... Same challenges for keeping government clean and responsive.

The difference appears to be in how serious our leaders are in pursuing goals. Our problem is our leaders seem to be just playing around trying to seem serious but produce little result.

Dealing with corruption, for instance, is more successful in Indonesia because they mean business. Their anti-corruption agency has an almost perfect batting average in jailing high profile corrupt officials… enough for us to honor them with the Magsaysay Award.

For 2016, it would do us well to choose someone like Jokowi: with actual experience running a local government unit, with a reputation for clean and effective governance and one who comes from the ranks of ordinary people. Enough with scions of the old rich! We need a president whose management style keeps him close to the people. It is the only way to know their needs and have a strong desire to satisfy those needs.

It would be a mistake for us to vote for a symbol again as we did in 2010. We need a candidate who is more than just honest because he or she must also have the capacity to deliver on the people’s needs.

Unfortunately, the only person I have in mind who is like Jokowi is dead. If there is a Jesse Robredo clone hidden in a LGU somewhere, now is the time to find out who that is.

The only other LGU head that comes to mind to be Robredo-like is another Bicolano… Albay Gov Joey Salceda. He has shown in his three terms as governor how to run a province that is prone to natural calamities such as volcanic eruptions and typhoons... how  to educate and lift families out of poverty.

Gov Joey, like Jesse, is internationally acclaimed for his governance accomplishments. He also has a good understanding of development economics and how the theory translates into practice. His experience in the legislature provides him insights on how to get support for programs in a post pork barrel environment.

But Joey is not flashy enough to win headlines or national attention the way a Trillanes or a Cayetano would. Dick Gordon also comes to mind but our electorate didn’t see his value in two national elections.

In the end, the problem is in how we choose our president. It is a popularity contest, determined by surveys, rather than proven capability to deliver on the job. Yes, Gov Joey is as close as we can get to a Jokowi but like Dick Gordon before him, we are not ready to vote for someone like him.

In the past decade we were compared to Thailand and Thailand left us behind. Investors are now focused on us and Indonesia. I am afraid, unless we learn how to choose our leaders well, we will be left behind again.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco