How Indonesia’s transformative leader tarnished his legacy

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The words “emergency warning” galvanised protesters in Indonesia in August. It was a rallying cry to protect the world’s third-largest democracy, which broke free from dictatorship less than 30 years ago. Thousands of protesters took to the streets. Some stormed the gates of parliament, tearing one down in fury.
The threat, as they saw it, was from their elected leader, President Joko Widodo.
In his two terms in office, Joko, who steps down Sunday, has transformed Indonesia, virtually eradicating extreme poverty in the sprawling archipelago, where about 280 million people live. But many believe he has also tried to bend the laws to install a political dynasty, undercutting the very democracy that let him become the country’s first president who was not from the military or the long-established political elite.
Last year, critics say, Joko — widely known to Indonesians as Jokowi — engineered a Constitutional Court ruling that let his 36-year-old son run for vice president. The son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, was elected in February alongside Joko’s choice to succeed him as president, Prabowo Subianto, a former defence minister and general who has been linked to human rights abuses.
In August, Joko’s allies attempted another manoeuvre to get his 29-year-old son, Kaesang Pangarep, on a ballot for political office. Infuriated Indonesians saw it as another about-face from Joko, who once declared, “Becoming a president does not mean channelling power to my children.”
Thousands of protesters gathered outside the parliament and Constitutional Court in Jakarta, the capital. Joko was subjected to very personal attacks, as social media users cursed him by using his birth name, Mulyono. (Joko was a sickly child whose parents renamed him in hopes of better health; calling him Mulyono was tantamount to casting a hex.)
Yet Joko is leaving office with an approval rating of 75%. Millions of Indonesians say he remains the only president who connected with ordinary people and delivered significant, concrete progress: building highways and bridges, introducing a universal health care system and handing out cash and food to the needy.
“What was so refreshing was he was so happy to break taboos, which unfortunately in the second term became a bad habit for breaking norms,” said Thomas Lembong, once a trade minister and chief speechwriter under Joko.
Lawmakers eventually gave in to the protesters’ demands in August, scuttling Kaesang’s bid for office. To many, it was clear what Joko had been trying to do.
“It’s not authoritarianism 1.0, where you kill your enemy, kidnap the opposition,” said Yoes Kenawas, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia. “With authoritarianism 2.0, you operate within the legal framework, so that, in a way, it still sounds democratic but is not actually democratic.”
A representative for Joko said he was not available for an interview. But Joko has repeatedly defended himself. “All of them are chosen by the people, decided by the people and voted by the people,” he told reporters last year after Gibran joined Prabowo’s ticket. “Not us, not the elite, not the party. That is democracy.”
For a long time, Joko was the antithesis of the typical leader of Indonesia, which was run for decades by authoritarians Sukarno and, later, Suharto. (Like many Indonesians, both men went by a single name.) Democracy was established after Suharto’s ouster in 1998, but politicians from prominent families dominated the ballot boxes.
A soft-spoken man with a self-effacing manner, Joko was born in a riverside slum in the city of Solo. He became a successful businessperson, exporting furniture, and was elected governor of Jakarta in 2012. He upended national politics two years later when he won the presidency.
Joko gave power a simple, humble face, and even his most vocal critics acknowledge that he has an innate understanding of what ordinary people want. He made unannounced visits — known as blusukan — to markets and malls across Indonesia. Obsessed with controlling inflation, he could rattle off the prices of basic goods. During an interview with The New York Times in 2022, he was more animated speaking about the price of chiles than about foreign policy.
“Jokowi truly cares for the poor people, and I’ve really felt it,” said Dwi Lestari, 36, a housewife from Yogyakarta, who said the government had given her cash and food. Her family now sees doctors for free. In the past, she said, they self-medicated because doctors’ appointments were too expensive.
Under Joko, Indonesia became the first trillion-dollar economy in Southeast Asia, but he relied heavily on government spending, burdening state-owned enterprises with debt. He has tried to harness Indonesia’s nickel mining prowess to create an industry making batteries for electric cars, an endeavour seen by some as resource nationalism. And he has lined up $30 billion to build a new capital city in Indonesian Borneo, a project that has been criticised for its immense cost and environmental hazards.
Prabowo will inherit all these challenges, and he will have to make some tough choices given the country’s budget deficit. (His election platform included a free school meals plan.)
Joko played a crucial role in Prabowo’s ascendance. The former general — who was once a son-in-law of Suharto, ran a brutal military operation in East Timor, then part of Indonesia, and was found culpable in the kidnapping of democracy activists — lost two presidential elections to Joko.
But during his second term, in 2019, Joko appointed Prabowo as his defence minister. That outreach to a disgraced opponent was a sign of how far Joko was willing to go to maintain a coalition in parliament with which he could push through his economic agenda.
About a month earlier, protests had broken out against Joko’s plan to weaken the respected Corruption Eradication Commission. Throughout his tenure, his government has arrested activists who criticised it, including people in the Papua region calling for independence from Indonesia. Joko never reined in police, who have rarely faced accountability for their brutal tactics, even after they caused one of the worst sports tragedies in recent history.
Joko’s allies floated the idea of a third term for him, which Indonesia’s Constitution forbids. Sensing pushback from the public, Joko backed off on that. Instead, he focused on establishing a dynasty, something he had disavowed early in his presidency.
“It’s been a very personalistic power grab in the last two years,” said Sana Jaffrey, a research fellow at the Australian National University’s Indonesia Institute.
Last October, when Gibran was 35, the Constitutional Court revised a law that required vice presidential candidates to be at least 40. The deciding vote in that 5-4 ruling was cast by Chief Justice Anwar Usman, who had been appointed by Joko and later married the president’s sister. A few days later, an ethics panel removed Anwar from his post, citing a conflict of interest, but the panel could not overturn the court’s decision.
Gibran then joined Prabowo’s ticket. To millions of Joko’s supporters, it was clear who the president was backing in the election, which Prabowo won despite his dark history.
The protests in August were set off by Joko’s push to revise the law to let candidates under 30 — like his younger son, Kaesang — run in local elections, which are set for next month.
Reza Rahadian, a famous actor, was among those who denounced Joko at the demonstrations. “This is not a country owned by a certain family,” he said. “If there is an article in the law that is only changed for a certain family, it is devastating to see.”
In a televised address that night, Joko said that the deliberations in parliament over the proposal were part of the standard “checks and balances” of government. “We respect the authority and decisions of each state institution,” he said.
The next day, parliament announced that it had suspended the election law revisions, a rare instance of the government’s giving in to protesters’ demands.
It is unclear how much influence Joko will wield with Prabowo after the presidential transition. But as vice president, Gibran will have a national platform that can set him up for the top job.
In the past few weeks, Joko has been visiting markets all over Indonesia as part of a farewell tour. Earlier this month, he was in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Wearing his trademark white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, he said he wanted to “apologise profusely for all the mistakes, any policies that may not have pleased the hearts of everyone.”
“I am an ordinary human being,” Joko added, “who is full of mistakes, full of shortcomings, full of errors.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.