 to the polls for what has been described as the biggest single-day election in the world. 205 million people are registered to vote in the process which will elect the president, members of parliament and holders of other positions across the country. This election is slightly unusual as old force have turned friends and some of the ideological differences are blurred to a larger extent than before. We go to Anish to understand the whosoever of Indonesia's polls. Anish, thanks so much for joining us. In this year of elections, Indonesia is one particularly important because of its population, because of the role the country plays. It's one of the key countries in that region, as well as even globally. So while we talked about this before, could you maybe just run through who are the major candidates? It's especially interesting, maybe even a bit confusing because the nature of alliances in the country. Yes, as you said, some of the alliances are quite interesting this time because what we're looking at is former enemies and contenders being allies, strong allies right now in this current election. The most, the front-runner candidate at this point, compared to all opinion polls would be Prabowo Sugianto who has contested against the current incumbent President Jokowi in the past two elections and lost to him obviously. And he is standing this time with his running mate who is Jokowi Dodo's son and a joint ticket which actually has the President's endorsement. So this sort of alliance is something that is quite interesting to see. The other candidate that we have is Aniz Beswaden who pretty much has been always in the opposition. He currently runs as an independent, but his backing actually has the same old opposition Democratic Party and the Nasdaq Party alliance. And this is pretty much the more right-wing alliance among the three right now. And then we have Ganja from the PDIP which is the former ruling party if Jokowi Dodo's past two elections are to be considered. He was part of the PDIP group and which is led by Mikavati Sukhathaputri. And right now they are no longer allies but contenders in this election. And in all of this what we're looking at is reworking of alliances but most importantly the coming back of strongman culture, dynasty culture which was something that since democratization in the 90s, Indonesia had tried to avoid as much as possible. It wasn't that it wasn't completely absent obviously. Obviously Mikavati Sukhathaputri's presence throughout the entire phase since democratization is obviously part of the dynasty politics. But at the same time what we're looking at was issues were at the heart of most of the election campaigns. Right now issues may be big but like some of the most important crucial issues like the omnibus bill that we talked about on this show which is what is called as a job creation bill has always been a big matter of contention especially for labor movements, for environment, for any kind of protections that exist right now on you know on sectors like mining and the sectors like telecommunication and so on which are quite crucial which are currently held by the state at this point in time. So bringing in foreign capital into such crucial sectors allowing for extractivist sort of capital to enter. These issues, many of the bread and butter issues are not at the heart of the debates right now and that is really what sets us apart from previous elections we have seen recently in Indonesia. And so you have a personality centric, dynasty centric kind of politics right now being played out especially with these three major candidates who are the only candidates obviously Indonesia's rules limit the kind of candidature that can be filed in the current system. So obviously it has to be somebody who is backed by one of the major parties. So definitely these three candidates are the only one that we have. Nevertheless, you have attempts by social movements to actually highlight some of these issues. Obviously it is not really taken up by the mainstream media at this point in time. That case quickly so what are some what are the agenda of these candidates in terms of what are they promising if like you said you know many of these issues are not really making it to the election campaign itself. Right now very interestingly obviously Prabowo who until recently has always been a major critic of Joko Vidodo is now promising to continue most of his policies maybe not some of the most contentious one including the move to shift the capital away from Jakarta to another new place. And this is something that has obviously had its own controversy at the time. And this primarily has to do with the manner in which climate change is affecting the capital city. But other than that there is virtually no difference between the kind of policies and you know the promises that Prabowo is making with respect to what Joko Vidodo has done so far. On the other hand this is the policy differences between say Prabowo and Ganja is something that is quite Ganja is the PDIP candidate is something that is almost virtually absent. Ganja obviously gives us a sort of liberal flavor obviously our PDIP has always been you know has always presented itself as a moderate phase and you know the face of right wing Islamist presence in Indonesia. And so Ganja kind of gives that kind of flavor but it doesn't really it is not really setting himself apart. And the only one who is actually you know quite apart from these two figures right now is Adiya Sveswadan who has taken up some of the more populist issues but is obviously being backed by his alliances backed by several Islamist parties has to temper it with significantly larger social conservators on that possibly even you know Joko, be it Jokovi or Prabowo or Ganja could even fathom. So that is the kind of agenda that they're running with. Obviously we have to remember that pretty much all of them all their parties that we are looking at most of them pretty much supported all of Joko Vidodo's moves and policies including the job creation bill including any the changes in the criminal code all of that was very widely supported within the parliament and all of these parties had given their complete endorsement. So it is not like the the ruling elite at this point is virtually indistinguishable in many respects apart from certain key issues of whether they're socially or you know socially conservative or liberal and that is pretty much the only thing that sets apart even there there is just a level of moderateism that is allowed you do not really see much of you know social liberalism being there and other than that most of them pretty much agree on most of the things that the Vidodo administration had passed and that pretty much clearly shows how the situation is right now and that is why we are seeing less issue-based politics and more personality-based politics at this point and that is pretty much the poverty of the election campaign right now in Middle Asia. Thank you so much Anish for that update. For our second story we take a look at the health crisis faced by the people of Afghanistan the crisis has been accentuated by a host of natural disasters and climate change but it's also essential to see it in the context of the failure of the US and its allies to build anything meaningful in the sector during the 20-year long invasion. We go to Anna to find out more about these issues. Anna thanks so much for joining us of course a very grave situation that does not get the attention it definitely deserves could you maybe take us to right now what are you know what is the situation like in Afghanistan as far as the health system is concerned and what are the kind of conditions or circumstances that are aggravating the crisis? Well in the case of Afghanistan it's actually difficult to begin to find the right place to begin because the country is facing such such an extent of health crisis ranging from still tackling the polio vaccination campaign but also some of the consequences that are arising from climate change and also from the earthquakes that we that we that the the people saw at the end of 2023. Now all of these things have been put aside let's put it that way but especially by those looking looking at Afghanistan from the west and essentially there hasn't been enough enough money coming in in order to actually support those programs we do know that some of the international institutions like the WHO the World Health Organization are still keeping Afghanistan in the focus and they do know that addressing the health health crisis there is very important but there's a question of how much they they are able to raise on their own and how much of that money they are actually able to contribute to to what's been going on. Now one of the things that of course has been talked about mostly is the situation when it comes to women's health women's and children's health of course and this is the part of the health system that has been most affected since since 2021 of course we have seen a major major decline in the availability of health care for women not only because there are no health workers or because the health services are not there but also because women are having a more difficult time traveling to to the health institutions which are far away and then of course there are limited limited numbers of women health workers still present in the system who are also struggling with with the new rules that that the the Taliban government has imposed on them. Right and of course in this context important to note that like you said this is not a crisis that begins only in 2021 when the US and NATO forces leave it's actually started way before that and I guess part of it is also the question of how to build an effective you know health infrastructure how to build a health system which these they clearly fail. So could you also take us to those questions of different models like what is the model right now of health care that is being provided in Afghanistan how is that a legacy of these last 20 years? Well unfortunately it's a very bad legacy as you said so you know when when we hear people policymakers whoever from the US from the west essentially from NATO countries commenting on how health care in Afghanistan is looking it would seem like they did a major contribution while they were there so you know one of the things that did improve was of course the indicator for maternal mortality but what did not think essentially improve is the stability of the health system and that's a major thing because it essentially means that once the foreign donors disappear the health system disappears as well and also of course it's not like the foreign donors were able to operate a perfect health system while they were there to begin with. Instead what we have seen is the introduction of a scatter system instead of one which is based on a homogenous system of primary health care. There's loads of organizations who are contracted to provide primary health care in different provinces and of course these organizations are doing the best most of them are doing their best but on the other hand you know it's not it's not a systematic intervention it's not something that's based on a strategy and it's something that can very easily disappear. This is something that we have seen essentially happening so it's not like you know in 2021 when the funding stopped it was not that these organizations were able to continue functions seamlessly after the change in government. On the contrary they had major problems with securing that they could pay salaries or that they could continue doing what they're supposed to do and now what we're seeing is that you know the situation hasn't changed much since so there still isn't enough money for building essentially a health system of a different sort in Afghanistan and then on the other hand it also seems that there's little wish to do so and I'm not only talking about the local situation I'm also talking about what's happening on the global scale. One of the most recent examples is for example UNICEF has taken over the contracting for the for the organizations providing primary healthcare but they're still insisting on doing it inside this framework of universal health coverage which essentially does not respond to what the population needs the population needs a health system which is based on what's what's observed locally and on what can be built locally. Right and also are there any models that are being experimented talked about right now in the context of the current reality which is that the Taliban is in control there's no changing that so what are the options ahead as far as the health system is concerned? Well there have been some recent recent visits on the ground if we can say that international solidarity visits especially in December from from Air Sea which is an organization from Indonesia. It's the same organization interestingly that managed to build the Indonesian hospital in Gaza and so their delegation went to when to Herat where the October earthquake hit and what they observed on the ground is that there was essentially what they said is that it's not like you see it on the news so the people while there is an obvious problem with the food shortage while there is an obvious problem with communicable disease people are ready to you know to to think about things that can be done and because of that the examples like building the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza were quite well received and these are some of the things that might might happen or we might hope will will pick up at least when we talk about the the local the regional the regional level. Thank you so much Anna for that update that's all we have in today's daily debrief we'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow in the meanwhile do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org follow us on other social media platforms and if you're watching this on YouTube please hit the subscribe button