Watching the Indonesian Elections 2014.

• Position: Book review

WATCHING THE INDONESIAN ELECTIONS 2014

Editor: Ulla Fionna

Published by: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2015, 184pp, US$21.90.

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THE YUDHOYONO PRESIDENCY: Indonesia's Decade of Stability and Stagnation

Editors: Edward Aspinall, Marcus Mietzner, Dirk Tomsa

Published by: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2015, 359pp, US$38.90(hb), US$29.90(pb).

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Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies has published two important books on democratic consolidation in Indonesia.

Ulla Fionna's edited volume is a collection of previously published essays that survey the 2014 election that brought the current Indonesian president, Joko Widodo (aka 'Jokowi'), to office. Most of these essays were originally published in the run up to the election itself. Several features of Indonesian politics come through quite strongly. First is the rise of political 'sosok' (prominent figures with strong name recognition), over and above parties and policies. These include military figures (like Prabowo Subianto, Jokowi's main challenger), tycoons (like current Vice President Jusuf Kalla) and mavericks that have emerged from local politics (Jokowi). Second, the book advances the argument that government in Indonesia should be seen in terms of cartel arrangements rather than more Western conceptions of divisions between 'government and opposition'. There are certainly political rivalries, but it is a shifting cast of allegiances where it is difficult to find a permanent bloc that might be termed a long-term opposition. Third, since the advent of democracy in Indonesia, the legislature has remained very divided, without much consolidation. Former President Megawati's PDI-P, which is also the nominating political vehicle for the current president, is Parliament's largest party with just 20 per cent of seats. Fourth, the commonly reported surge of Islamic parties to 32 per cent of the vote overlooks the fact that there is no sense in which the parties that constitute this vote form any kind of bloc. In fact the harder edged Islamist PKS, which had a surprising surge in 2009, took a hammering in 2014 after a series of leadership scandals.

Overall, this is a volume full of insights as to how Jokowi, the erstwhile local body politician with a strong reputation for clean government, successfully obtained the presidency. Jokowi defined retail politics, using small meeting and door-to-door campaigning to...