Jokowi


Indonesian president encourages extra-judicial killings (foreigners preferred)

What is it with Indonesians and the law? It seems to me the country is beset with enthusiasm for purely symbolic laws, coupled with an utter disdain for the actual law. The photo above, taken in the Maduran town of Sumenep by my friend and colleague Michael Buehler, provides a delightful, home-made example of the first. Here’s a closer look: “Forbidden to have a traffic accident here!” it declares, above a gaping hole in the road. And then it gives…


Castration: another knee-jerk ‘solution’ from Jokowi

Indonesia’s president had rushed out a knee-jerk response to the gang rape of a 14 year-old girl: chemical castration and even death for perpetrators. But what’s needed is more thoughtful structural reforms that might reduce violence while protecting and helping victims.


Too much testosterone: can women save Indonesia?

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has appointed an all-female panel to select the next anti-corruption commissioners. While some think this is a sign that women are gaining political power in Indonesia. I argue that the panel will probably do a good job precisely because women are generally marginalised, and therefore less likely to be woven into networks of patronage and corruption.


Indonesia gets noticed (not in a good way)

Several times over the last months, I’ve been asked to comment on the impending execution of convicted drug dealers. I’ve always refused, largely because I thought I’d just be fuelling hysteria about something that wasn’t actually going to happen. Then, just a few minutes before I was about to speak on a panel called “Death Sentences” at the University of California Irvine, I heard that Indonesian police had indeed pulled the trigger on eight people, one of them mentally ill….



From Indonesia’s Department of You Couldn’t Make It Up

The department of You Couldn’t Make It Up has been working overtime in Indonesia lately. Parliament has just confirmed a notorious corruption suspect to head the police, and the President thinks he can make fishermen richer by sinking ships.


Jokowi’s first task: undermine dynasty politics

Tomorrow ushers in a new era for Indonesian politics. For the first time since 1957, when then president Sukarno did away with parliamentary democracy, the country will have an executive and a legislature that have different loyalties. But for the first time, too, there may be a chance of amputating the ageing hands that have so leadenly guided the nation’s political parties for the past decade and a half.


Let the cow-trading begin!

Well, it’s official. Over 133 million Indonesians cast their votes peacefully, had them counted repeatedly and now have a new president elect. Congratulations to Indonesians for staying unflustered in the face of Prabowo Subianto’s schoolboy tantrums….


Keep calm, Indonesia. But not too calm.

“Indonesians are not idiots!” I proclaimed in my final post before the election, waxing lyrical about the common sense of the Indonesian electorate. They wouldn’t, I predicted, be swayed by Prabowo Subianto’s bluster. By election day I was getting very nervous indeed. Then the Quick Count results came through. “I told you so” is never a pretty sentence, but I was inordinately happy to be able to pronounce it. It appears, though, that I was wrong about a large minority…