- The Strategist - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au -
What Jokowi confronts
Posted By Graeme Dobell on September 30, 2014 @ 06:00
We are now learning something about the position of the presidency of Indonesia. What does it mean to be the President of Indonesia? And how much real power does the presidency hold? Joko Widowo and SBY are far closer in the powers they have to the President of the United States than they are to, say, the Prime Minister of Australia. The President of the US always has to bargain with the Congress and finds it quite difficult and is sometimes subject to surprising rulings from the judiciary as well; that traditional three prongs of power, the administration, the legislature and the judiciary...It’s a mistake to assume—and this is becoming clearer and clearer—it’s a mistake to assume that the President of Indonesia can necessarily easily get his way with the legislature. For 40 years we lived with President Suharto who made parliament look quite unimportant. The game has changed dramatically now. This will be tested in the next three months, six months, under President Joko Widodo.
If there are strong pressures on Joko Widodo, including from the parliament, to adopt populist policies, the incoming government may find it difficult to promote strong economic growth. In an inward-looking resilience scenario in which the government faces resistance to reform measures, the overall rate of economic growth could remain relatively low, perhaps below 6% per year. That wouldn’t be sufficient to provide jobs for the expanding labour force, and unemployment could be expected to rise. Criticism of Widodo’s leadership would be likely to grow. The first requirement for a higher rate of growth is a sustained level of investment of over 30% of GDP. But increasing nationalism would be likely to discourage foreign investment, particularly in the oil and mining sectors. In turn, that would also tend to constrain domestic investment. In that case, the other sectors of the economy could also become sluggish before too long.
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[1] Indonesia Update: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/acde/ip/update/
[2] new ASPI paper: https://www.aspi.org.au/publications/joko-widodos-indonesia-possible-future-paths
[3] interview with McCawley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V0r2Fbn1Eo
[4] neighbourly echoes: http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/asian-gazing-part-v-australia-indonesia-on-boats-and-jokes/
[5] Graeme Dobell: https://www.aspi.org.au/about-aspi/aspi-staff/fellows/graeme-dobell