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Jokowi's victory is a decisive break with Indonesia's old order
The Guardian (Australia) - July 23, 2014
The former army strongman has strategically rejected the results, including staging a dramatic walkout during the tallying of final votes ahead of the official announcement last night. Prabowo is proving to be a world-class sore loser; nonetheless, his lawyer last night announced he would not take his tantrum to the constitutional court.
So Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the former furniture exporter who was born in a riverbank slum and later became Jakarta governor, will be the new president of Indonesia. In electing a "man of the people" over a Suharto-era general with a brutal past, Indonesia has made a decisive break with the old political order.
This was an election with a great deal at stake. With a narrow margin between candidates, Australia's nearest neighbour came close to being led by a man who has been blacklisted from entering the US over human rights violations.
References to Prabowo's chequered past belie the true extent of the shocking and unresolved allegations against him. As then head of Indonesia's special forces, Prabowo's role in the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists prior to Suharto's fall in 1998 led to his being dismissed from service.
All this is widely known and reported. Prabowo also made worryingly anti-democratic, nationalist and xenophobic references throughout his campaign, as well as affiliating with hard-line Islamic groups.
Even Indonesia's major English language newspaper, The Jakarta Post, for the first time in its history, publicly endorsed a candidate. The paper stated in its endorsement for Jokowi that, "There is no such thing as being neutral when the stakes are so high". Others were preparing for the worst. The Australian government reportedly removed Prabowo from Australia's visa blacklist.
We will never know how Australia may have approached a Prabowo presidency, but the visa action is telling. Would prime minister Tony Abbott's willingness to defend the seemingly indefensible when it is strategically advantageous to do so, have led to Prabowo's past being conveniently overlooked, perhaps to ensure the continuation of Australia's asylum seeker policies?
With last night's official announcement of Jokowi's win, Abbott and other global leaders may be breathing sighs of relief at having narrowly avoided an awkward diplomatic predicament.
However, a Jokowi presidency comes with its own challenges. Emerging from an election in which he was characterised in opposition to the strong, nationalistic Prabowo, Jokowi may also seek to prove himself a formidable leader and challenge the notion that former president Megawati Sukarnoputri may be pulling the strings behind the scenes.
It is expected that Jokowi will prioritise domestic issues at least in the short to medium term: revitalising Indonesia's stalling economy, lifting millions out of poverty, improving education and health and implementing ambitious public transport infrastructure programs as promised in the election.
Jokowi will need to choose his foreign policy priorities carefully. It seems likely he will focus attention on foreign issues with a strong domestic dimension – he has already highlighted the issue of improving protections for Indonesian migrant workers. As such, Australia is unlikely to factor highly in Indonesia's foreign policy mix.
The Australian government has hardly helped itself in this regard. During a decade of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's (SBY) outward-facing leadership, Australia had plenty of opportunities to forge deep and abiding ties with Indonesia, which it did with varying degrees of success. Yet due to a number of high-profile blunders by its leaders, Australia has repeatedly failed to capitalise on these opportunities and seems blissfully unaware that we need Indonesia far more than Indonesia needs us.
Australia was caught bugging SBY's phone and those of his inner circle, then comprehensively botched the necessary apology. Instead of immediately and openly providing an Obama-style apology, prime minister Tony Abbott blundered into parliament and very publicly told Indonesia to deal with it.
More recently, Abbott rejected SBY's olive-branch invitation to meet at the open government partnership forum in Bali. And then there's the ongoing problem of Australia's repeated incursions on Indonesia's sovereign territory as part of its hard-line asylum seeker policies.
Indonesia went as far as to directly request Australia not take unilateral action on that issue, saying Jakarta's "close cooperation and trust" was at risk.
Australia, true to form, forged ahead with its "turn back the boats" policy, later prompting Indonesia to deploy warships to monitor its southern border. It is relatively rare for an issue relating to Australia to make front-page Indonesian news, yet these incidents have been regularly canvassed. The relationship is in the diplomatic doldrums, and improving slowly.
During last month's foreign policy election debate in Indonesia, both candidates acknowledged the distrust between the two nations. Although each indicated they would seek to heal the rift with Australia, they also agreed that Indonesia should not allow itself to be belittled by its neighbour.
In light of Australia's military intervention in East Timor just 15 years ago, and its role in Konfrontasi some decades prior, there is understandable anxiety when an Australian government brands its border protection programme, which impinges upon Indonesia's sovereignty, "Operation Sovereign Borders". It's easy to comprehend why national security has been cited by Jokowi as a priority, suggesting further incursions will not be received lightly.
In contrast to SBY, Jokowi will not be so personally invested in the bilateral relationship. Australia will have to work much harder to collaborate with Indonesia. Tony Abbott will face increasing resistance and further embarrassment if he continues to ignore Indonesia's wishes.
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