 Welcome to New Mandala TV. I'm James Kigah, Asia Pacific editor at the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU. Today I'm joined by Associate Professor Greg Feely from the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs to talk about Indonesian politics and Jikowi. Greg, thanks for joining us. It's a pleasure, James. If we could turn to the current situation that Jikowi finds himself in, we'll be wrong in having so much hope for Jikowi as Indonesia's newest president and the possibility of reform that he seemed to bring with his election. Clearly we were. I think nearly all observers overestimated Jikowi's capacity to bring about change and it's been in fact quite shocking at several critical points to see his inability to resist pressure, mainly from major coalition partners but also from other significant interest groups within Indonesian society and the political elite. And we expected and indeed he steadfastly spoke about his desire to overcome those kinds of vested interests and to create a completely different kind of Indonesia, one that would be clean, one that would be based on reform and merit and the like. And within a few days of his presidency with the announcement of the cabinet, it was clear that he had in effect buckled to pressure and had embarked on a course that entailed a lot of compromises that we never expected he would do. I would mention that this was not a surprise only to foreign observers but also many people who worked very closely with him, including in his own team, his election success team, have also been surprised at the way that Jikowi has reacted to the pressures of being president. So we didn't have many indications in his earlier career as Mayor of Solo and then as Governor of Jakarta that he would lack steadfastness in the way he has done as president. And I suppose one conclusion to draw from this is that it's almost like a political Peter principle that a person rises to a level where they fail. And the harsh reality may be that Jikowi is not equipped to be a good president, a good leader of a nation, whereas he was an effective Governor and a very effective Mayor. I wouldn't want to judge this too early but we have to be open to the possibility that in fact being a president of Indonesia with all the huge responsibilities and pressures that involves is something that he in fact doesn't respond to very effectively. So do you think Jikowi, particularly with the current situation between the Police Anti-Corruption Commission and the National Police, KPK and Polri, can he dig himself out of these holes? He just seems to be creating more and more problems for himself, particularly with the appointment of people who, while slightly better than previous appointments, aren't that much better. Can he come back from this? This is one of several cases where a bad, a really bad initial decision has all kinds of knock-on effects. And Jikowi is working hard to try to lessen those deleterious effects. And it's proving a battle. And he seems to be winning some victories. So you mentioned his previous nominee for the Police, National Police Chief position, Budi Gwinnawan. So his nomination has now been cancelled after the Anti-Corruption Commission was going to charge him with corruption. He has been replaced with Badrodin Haithi, who is somewhat better but still not really a reform-minded, clean chief of police. Indeed it's very hard to find, completely clean, highly effective police generals, but it's an improvement on Budi Gwinnawan. But some of the protegees of Budi Gwinnawan who are conducting a relentless campaign against the leadership of the Anti-Corruption Commission remain in place. The head of the National Detective Division is one of those people who remains in place, Budi Waseso. So as long as some of those people remain in place, harm continues to be done. Jikowi at the same time has appointed three new commissioners to the temporary commissioners, to the Anti-Corruption Commission. One of those has a charge against him, the police are pursuing a charge against him. Another of those appointees is someone who seems to have close links to the Sahara era elite. And there are questions about his integrity to be working in such a sensitive position. So again, a lot of Jikowi's positions, a lot of the decisions that he's taking are containing compromises and are not really in step with his avowed aim of cleaning up Indonesian politics. And what's more, if he doesn't take really strong action against what the police is doing, the result will be a knobbled, will be a greatly less effective Anti-Corruption Commission. And this is crucial for Jikowi. The Anti-Corruption Commission is probably the most important institution to cleaning up Indonesian politics or to retaining some kind of cleanliness in Indonesian politics. So if he allows that to be emasculated, well then that will be a very big black mark against his name. Are we being unfair to Jikowi? Can Indonesian politics truly be clean as they currently stand? What hope is there, particularly with the perpetuation of oligarchs within the system itself? Indeed, it's a massive task. And I think everyone expected that he would have to make compromises. That there would be some cabinet ministers who were not to his liking, but they were the price he had to pay for keeping coalition partners happy. But I think it's the extent of the compromises and the kind of either regressive or low-competence ministers who have been appointed, that's been the surprise. We would have thought there would be 20-30% of ministers like that, and instead I think the percentage is higher. And some of the appointments are in key portfolios such as the Defence Minister. And this is a very important portfolio for Jikowi, and many of us feel as if he didn't have to make that appointment, there are other options open to him. So yes, compromise is certainly necessary. You can't take on all of the vested interests in Indonesian politics in one go, but I certainly expected him to confront them in a more systematic way than what he's done. And in fact, before he was inaugurated as president, he sent out some of his most trusted advisers to tell people in key parts of the elite that things were going to change, that the kind of cartel arrangements that they had or the kinds of political chicanery they have gotten up to would no longer be tolerated. And so it looked as if he was putting in place a system of measures that would really strike a blow against old-style Indonesian politics. And when it came to the crunch, he did hardly any of those things. There are a few areas, oil and gas was one area we attempted to clean up. There are a few other, a number of good appointments in the Cabinet, but nowhere near enough to make the kind of difference that he talked about. So the job is not impossible to bring about reform. It just requires a good deal of fortitude and I think political savviness. And what's disappointed me is that Jakowi has shown far too little of either of those qualities. For a man who's had the kind of meteoric rise that he's had, he's taken a lot of risks. He's been very clever in the way he's navigated his way through various competing forces, but we're not finding that now that he's in the presidential palace. And speaking of compromise, Greg, are Jakowi's actions also a testament to his ability or inability to manage that relationship with Megawati Sukuna Bhutri and the PDIP, or is it something else in your mind? It's more than just Megawati and PDIP, although that remains perhaps one of the most, or the most significant problem for him inside his own coalition. He has another big problem in the form of Surya Paolo, who is basically the boss of the National Democratic Party, and Surya Paolo is a very big businessman and he has also pushed Jakowi into making a number of appointments which were really not at all reform, a nimical to reform process. So they're really the two groups of people who have caused Jakowi most problems as president. I suppose it is hard for us to know enough about what's been going on behind the scenes, particularly what's been going on in the palace to know for sure, but there's a clear impression that he hasn't been willing to push things to the brink. So for example, when the cabinet was being put together, Megawati was insisting on certain of her people being appointed and people to whom Jakowi clearly objected. Rather than Jakowi saying no, he continued to visit Megawati's house. He continued to seek out advice about what she was thinking about these issues, but he was the president. The game should have changed at that point, and indeed he spoke to people before he was inaugurated and he said the game will change at that point. When I have all the authority of the president, I will assert myself. And in fact, he didn't. He looked subordinate, he looked compliant, and I think that sent out messages to a lot of people in the political system that if you apply enough pressure, you'll be able to at the very least get to get Jakowi to compromise a great deal and you might be able to get him to back down entirely on his preferred choices. And so that's the process that seems to me to have been in play for people like Megawati and also Suria Paolo. Now you alluded to this earlier, Craig. A lot of Jakowi's compromises seem to speak against his notion of reform and his promise of reform, but also if we turn now to the case of the Bali Nine and the two Australians on death row, his decision not to grant clemency and go ahead with these executions as a matter of policy seem to really speak against Jakowi's socially progressive promise in nature. What do you make of this decision to not even countenance clemency under any circumstances? I think there's several possible interpretations and some of it comes back to Jakowi's own personality and indeed it's becoming increasingly clear how little we do know about what he really thinks. He gives very little of himself away in any of his public statements. There tend to be very anodyne things about his past but as to his current thinking, his face has hardly any expression on it whenever he gives interviews and particularly when he's talking about important things. So Yudhiyono for example, if he was making a statement about something he felt strongly about, you would often see the emotion on his face. It was clear that this was something that meant a lot to him. But Jakowi looks much more impassive. He's a difficult man to read and it's hard to know whether he's experiencing any kind of inner turmoil about a decision such as executing a dozen people or more. Having said that, I think it's also revealing about the politics. So Jakowi made this decision in the first month of his presidency. I think there's probably a lot of truth to what the Fairfax media has been reporting that Jakowi didn't have anywhere near enough information which to make these decisions at the time in which he made it, this blanket rejection of all clemency please. And he made that decision seemingly to look tough. Lots of observers have commented on this at a time when he was already being criticised. I think his refusal to budge from that position is indicative of perhaps a more socially conservative attitude than we had imagined that he had. And so he may well indeed, as a matter of principle, find nothing to object to in the death penalty. I think there's a certain lack of intellectual engagement or philosophical engagement, perhaps even moral engagement with this issue as well. So there's plenty of information available that the figures that Jakowi is quoting for the death toll rising from hard drugs and for the number of Indonesians who are addicted to hard drugs is probably greatly inflated. There's certainly not reliable figures to be quoting day in, day out. Nonetheless, Jakowi continues to do so. He also hasn't in any way engaged with the debate about the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent. And so the whole question of the efficacy of state execution of people and if they execute the next batch of 12 or so, well that'll bring to 18 people in a few months whose lives he has taken away in effect. And he doesn't give any impression of being perturbed about that or of going through an internal debate about whether this is justified. And he could easily leave those people in jail because most of them, if their sentences are commuted, they've got life sentences. He could also stall the process. Many Indonesian presidents have done that. He didn't have to bring matters to the head in the way he's done. But he has done so and I think it's not only for political reasons but I think he himself believes that he should just act on this matter. So we're learning things about Jakowi as a result of this process and for people who have a more progressive set of views, they're not particularly pleasant things. Is there any chance that he will do a U-turn and change his decision? There's been a lot of agitation from Australia, particularly our foreign minister and prime minister, which undoubtedly is probably not helpful in the way it's been framed. But is there any chance that Jakowi might reverse his decision in this case? I'm sorry to say I see almost zero prospect of him changing his attitude, partly because he has already made an emphatic public commitment to continue with the executions. He must be mindful of the kind of political flak that Yudhiyono copped when he showed leniency towards Chapelle Corby. So there's no votes for an Indonesian president to be seen to be soft on drug dealers and there's probably a great deal of political harm. But moreover, I think Jakowi, he's not much concerned about what other countries think and particularly Western countries. That's also completely different from Yudhiyono who was always preoccupied with Indonesia's international standing. So the kind of reputational harm that Indonesia has been suffering over these, and it's not just in Australia, it's in Brazil and the Netherlands and lots of other countries. And this will continue if he proceeds with the executions. I don't think that particularly worries Jakowi at all. He's a very domestically focused politician. He knows very little about international affairs, aside from some economic issues. And the whole business of diplomacy is something that's rather abstract to him. And I also think it does come back to the point that he probably doesn't see the death penalty as a bad thing and he may well have what I take to be a rather simplistic view that the death penalty will indeed help to curb drugs. Now I think if he really wanted to solve the problem of hard drug distribution in Indonesia he would look at his own police force. There have been a number of police generals and other senior officers who've been charged and convicted for the involvement in drug business. There's a lot of media and other reporting and academic studies to show the heavy involvement in police in the drug industry, but he's not touching that. He's taking the easy option. So that is also somewhat contrary. No one expected he would confront the police and seek overnight change and withdrawal from these things. But what he could do is more purposefully support the measures that would gradually put very high disincentives on police officers becoming involved in not only drug trade but other forms of corruption by empowering anti-corruption commission, all sorts of other investigative agencies who might be looking at this. And that's what he's not doing. And so the core problem remains, I think, and killing foreigners who've been running drugs is not really going to have much impact on it at all. And finally, Greg, if we take the whole picture of the disillusionment both within the Indonesian electorate and possibly the international perspective on Jikowi, what would his main political rival, Prabowo, be making of all this? You ran him so close in the 2014 presidential elections. Do you think Prabowo would be getting itching feet and tempted to jump back on the horse, so to speak, and make another tilt? I think Prabowo would always hold out the hope that he could become president one day. But he's been playing a curious role. He met Jikowi when it was a week or a week before and he spoke in a mildly supported way of what Jikowi was planning to do to kind of get out of this mess in regarding the nomination of the National Police Chief. And Prabowo's coalition in parliament has actually played ball. It's actually passed some of the legislation that Jikowi wants through. So it hasn't been implacable opposition from Prabowo. He could have done a lot more to destabilise Jikowi to make life difficult for him than what he's been doing. So it's a very interesting role that he's playing in that. Now part of that is also to deepen the divide between Megawati and Jikowi. So there's some payback for Prabowo in that because he's never quite forgiven Megawati for not endorsing him in his last presidential campaign. But he's playing a more complicated role than what many of us thought that he would play. So he also hasn't been acting according to script. Thanks Greg. Pleasure.