One Year For Jokowi In The Second Period, Observers Call It More And More Similar To Soeharto's Style

JAKARTA - Joko Widodo is entering one year of his tenure in his second term as President of the Republic of Indonesia. Executive Director of Lingkar Madani for Indonesia (LIMA) Ray Rangkuti assessed that Jokowi's leadership attitude is increasingly similar to that of the second President of the Republic of Indonesia, Soeharto.

"If I look at it, in the past year I have felt that Pak Jokowi is more inclined to adopt Pak Soeharto's leadership style than Soekarno and Pak Habibie," Ray said during a webinar discussion, Tuesday, October 20.

The similarity of Jokowi's style with Suharto is seen from Jokowi's mindset, which currently prioritizes investment and infrastructure issues. Soeharto, during his tenure, always put development first.

Then, Jokowi and Soeharto both accumulated power in one hand. In that sense, currently Jokowi is supported by the majority of factions in the Indonesian Parliament. More and more lawmakers are supporting Jokowi's decision.

"The same issues were taken over by a typical president of the New Order. Including the Omnibus Law. Where, now it seems that many of the powers that we have distributed to local governments have been taken over by the president again," he said.

In addition, Jokowi's model for collecting development financing is similar to Soeharto. "If Pak Harto previously opened up a wide range of exploration for our natural resources, the Omnibus Law currently enters a lot of extractive businesses, where the main source is our natural resources," said Ray.

Furthermore, Jokowi seems increasingly to be indifferent to anti-corruption enforcement. This can be seen in Jokowi's attitude in revising the KPK Law which is considered to weaken the authority of the anti-graft agency.

Then, the next similarity characteristic is the low level of political ethics. According to Ray, every day, democratic ethics in the Jokowi era are increasingly not accommodated. The effect is a growing political dynasty, even in the Jokowi dynasty itself.

"Pak Jokowi practiced it himself by allowing his son in Solo to run for himself and his son-in-law in the field to also run for the 2020 Pilkada," said Ray.