The first challenge facing Indonesia's president Joko Widodo is to handle his Obama Hour. When Barack Obama first won the White House there was a surge of excitement that America now had a president who would drive through change and make a difference in the lives of ordinary people. With two and a half years left in office, Obama is seen, perhaps not entirely fairly, as a lackluster and ineffective president. The expectations of Widodo, are every bit as high. He has to manage them immediately without engendering disappointment and cynicism. And on the face of it, the man popularly known as Jokowi, has a better chance than Obama. Unlike the Chicago law professor, who merely served as a US senator before he pitched for the White House, Widodo has exercised executive powers, first as mayor of Surakarta and then from 2012 as governor of the capital Jakarta. In both jobs he earned a reputation for getting things done and, more important in a country disfigured by corruption, for being honest. The reform platform on which he campaigned included a commitment to cut back radically on subsidies which, for fuel alone, will this year cost the state $21billion. The country's bloated, bent and backward bureaucracy is long overdue a radical overhaul. Unclogging the endless official log jams, which stymy local and foreign investment in both business and infrastructure, is seen as essential to creating jobs and economic growth. Though running the country with the world's largest Muslim population is a very different challenge even from being boss of Jakarta, Widodo may well have far better political grounding than his US opposite number. However when he takes over in October from outgoing president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he will still share one of Obama's problems — the support of legislators. His political coalition has only 37 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, which is the more powerful part of the People's Consultative Assembly. Thus driving through any changes, to say nothing of controversial laws, will require deal-making on a piecemeal basis. Add to this the recalcitrance during the election campaign of some of his legislators to support Widodo's reformist platform, and there would seem to be troubles ahead. These may be deepened as a consequence of the behavior of his defeated rival, former general Prabowo Subianto, who secured only 47 percent of the votes cast. Subianto disputes the result and is seeking to challenge it in the courts. This line of action is likely to be backed by the entrenched elites, who in principle, could suffer from Widodo's planned reforms. Most democratic politics has venom enough without introducing more. There is little doubt about the legitimacy of Widodo's victory. Subianto would have shown himself in a far better light if he had simply accepted defeat. The clear danger is that his supporters may follow his lead and themselves seek to obstruct the business of government. There is one trap that it could be said that the new president has actually laid for himself. Reductions in state subsidies almost invariably strike at the poorest parts of society. Many of those who voted for Widodo will therefore be hit where they feel it most — in their pocket books. However much they may have endorsed the principle of subsidy reform during the election, it will surely be different when they feel the financial pain. At which point Widodo's establishment opponents will push themselves forward eagerly as champions of the poor.
