THERE is another story behind the Joko Widodo presidency, one that most outsiders have failed to notice and entails a considerable downside to his stewardship — Indonesia's democracy has been severely undermined. Corruption has spiralled out of control.
As a former minister in Joko's cabinet, I had a firsthand glimpse into his presidency, its strengths and its shortcomings. Yes, the president is a good man. I neither saw nor heard any palace rumours that he was acting in bad faith.
Yet a president's stay in office should not be judged by his character alone, but also his capacity for leadership and the people who work for him. On this score, it must be understood there are men and women within the president's inner circle who do not have the nation's interest in mind.
Many are corrupt on such a scale that one is reminded of the pervasive corruption that defined the Suharto era. They are also the main actors and the ones responsible for our country's democratic backsliding.
Refer to The Economist's annual Democracy Index. In 2017, Indonesia recorded the largest decline in its ranking out of all the countries surveyed, dropping 20 places. In fact, Indonesia's democracy has been in decline since 2015, which is when Joko first took power.
The latest index, published last year, puts Indonesia in 64th place out of the 167 countries surveyed. For a democracy that was once the darling of Asia and praised as a success story, it is sobering to realise that Indonesia today is considered a flawed democracy and languishes far below its peers such as Malaysia, which ranks 43rd in the world.
Anybody who watches Indonesia closely should understand the constant undermining of Indonesia's democracy under Joko's watch: civil liberties have been severely curtailed through laws that make it easy for the government to detain and imprison its critics; the local press has become less of a voice of independent and critical reporting than a mouthpiece for the government; and the judiciary has become increasingly less independent and more of a tool of the elite establishment.
Unfortunately, democratic backsliding has intensified in 2021. For example, the Joko administration last month issued a presidential decree that allows for the training of citizens to recognise and report residents to the authorities if there are "symptoms of extreme attitudes that could potentially become acts of violence and terror".
So far, the new policy has not been covered widely in the mainstream media and reactions by rights groups have been relatively mild. But make no mistake about it, this is not only dangerous, it is also in contradiction to the Preamble of Indonesia's Constitution, which guarantees all citizens' basic rights.
For the government to partake in a programme that would effectively empower civilians to report on each other based on suspicion alone makes it open to gross and widescale abuse. It would allow the police to preemptively arrest citizens on charges of extremism.
One could easily imagine the political elite exploiting the regulation to apprehend their critics, hence intimidating the populace into keeping their mouths closed even in cases where there are obvious and blatant abuses of power.
Over the past few weeks, the government delivered yet another blow to democracy by installing a "digital police force" that will patrol social media such as Facebook and Twitter. When they deem any remark to be either a hoax or slanderous, they are empowered to demand netizens remove the offending content.
If it is not removed after two warnings, then the police have the right to detain the offender and bring them to "justice" under Indonesia's law on information and electronic transactions. The bottom line? Indonesia's democracy will become even less of a democracy in substance and more illiberal.
Unfortunately, we should expect the situation to become even more severe in the near future. The reason for such pessimism is grounded in the fact that since the pandemic broke out last year, a large majority of Indonesians have failed to receive social assistance funds.
More and more Indonesians are falling into poverty, and as they struggle and learn the monies they were supposed to receive from the government have gone unaccounted for, disappointment and anger will come to the fore.
Meanwhile, they learn that for government programmes involving national health and life insurance schemes and social assistance, it has been reported that nearly 85 trillion rupiah is suspected to have been stolen.
This is an outrageous level of corruption. As the pandemic rages on, we fear that any protest against government abuse will only be met either with force or detentions. Joko recently announced that he welcomed citizens to criticise his administration.
Yet one must wonder, could this turn out to be Indonesia's version of Mao's Hundred Flowers Movement from 1956 to 1957, during which citizens were encouraged to express openly their opinions? History books tell us that after the end of the campaign, Mao conducted a crackdown on those who criticised the regime.
In the final analysis, we must recognise that it is the president's responsibility to correct the ills of our nation. Leaders must be judged not by what they say, rather by their actions. Indonesia is going backwards, not forward.
If Joko does little to correct the sins of those who govern with him and have abused their power, then ultimately he is at fault as well.
The writer is former coordinating minister for maritime affairs,
Indonesia