Indonesia Intelligencer (Jan 28 - Feb 2)
A round-up of the most essential political, business, and cultural news about Indonesia every week, from the editors of Coconuts Jakarta
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Politics
A ramp up in paranoia and hostility towards the LGBT community (quantified by a recent survey that showed nearly 90% of Indonesians viewed the minority group as a “threat”), combined with a fear among political parties of looking soft on moral issues (and thus become a target of political attacks by Islamic hardliners, just like imprisoned former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama), seems to have put an ultra-conservative draft revision of Indonesia’s Criminal Code on the fast track towards ratification by the DPR.
However, rights activists and journalists that have seen the draft have alerted the general public to the fact that this new version of the Criminal Code would not only criminalize homosexuality but all sex outside of marriage. Online opposition to the draft revision is growing (a Change.org petition asking the DPR to reject the bill has received over 30,000 signature in just a few days) but without more substantive counter-pressure, lawmakers may decide it would be too costly politically to oppose its passage (the fact that it also has clauses that could weaken anti-corruption investigators may also help ensure it goes through).
While political parties are looking to shore up support before this year’s regional elections, President Joko Widodo recently made several key personnel changes in moves clearly aimed at strengthening his alliances ahead of the 2019 presidential election, particularly with the military and certain key political parties. The Diplomat has a good overview of the reasons behind Jokowi’s third (and likely last) cabinet reshuffle while New Mandala takes a closer look at the strategic value of his new armed forces appointments.
President Jokowi’s recent tour of Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan shows that he’s serious about making Indonesia into a powerful political player within the Islamic world. The fact that it also helps him burnish his Muslim credentials with domestic voters (at a time when his political opponents are trying to paint his administration as somehow anti-Islam in the hopes that they can use the “anti-Ahok playbook” against him) is obviously not lost on the savvy former furniture maker.
Also read:
Exclusive: Cutting corruption in Indonesia’s courts (GovInsider): An interview with Aria Suyudi, a coordinator at the Judicial Reform Team Office of Indonesia’s Supreme Court, discussing internal efforts to battle graft in the corruption-riddled court system, including increasing transparency through an e-payments system that is planned for completion by the first quarter of this year.
A Guide to Navigating the 2018 Risk Landscape in Indonesia (The Diplomat)
Business
Although it had been widely reported before, this week, Google officially confirmed they would be investing in Indonesian ride hailing app unicorn Go-Jek, saying the deal “lets us partner with a great local champion in Indonesia’s flourishing startup ecosystem, while also deepening our commitment to Indonesia’s internet economy.” Sources told Reuters that Google was investing about $100 million.
Despite (or perhaps because of) their massive investments in the country, Google bowed to pressure from the Indonesian government to block gay dating app Blued from the country’s version of the Play Store for violating the country’s homophobic “norms,” setting a bad precedent for the future.
Go-Jek and its competitors will need funding not just to vie for market share but also to weather the unrest caused by government regulations on the ride-hailing industry that went into effect this week. Drivers have already organized protests over the new rules, which they call onerous (though less so than an earlier version struck down by the courts).
Despite Bali’s volcano scare, Indonesia still managed to attract just over 14 million tourists this year, a 22% jump from the previous year that can be attributed to the country’s aggressive tourism campaign to get visitors to look beyond the Island of the Gods for their vacation plans.
Also read:
Indonesia’s central bank considering adopting blockchain technology to launch digital rupiah (Coconuts Jakarta)
Indonesia opens up to foreign universities, has its eyes on top Australian schools (ABC Online)
Other news and notable features
Banteng Hunt, a painting by 19th-century Indonesian master Raden Saleh that was rediscovered in a French home last August, sold for €7.2 million (US$ 9 million) at an auction in France last Saturday.
Indonesia Stock Exchange walkway collapse investigation hindered by lack of cooperation (ABC Online)
The engineer investigating the collapse of a walkway in Jakarta that injured 72 students says he's been blocked from inspecting critical parts of the failed structure.
"I don't have access to go in," Steffie Tumilar told the ABC."The cooperation is not so smooth."
The United Nations Refugee Agency’s office in Indonesia has begun informing the nearly 14,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia that they should not expect to be welcomed by another country. Instead, they should prepare to assimilate into Indonesian society as best they can, or consider returning to their strife-torn countries.
Rewetting the Swamp: Indonesia’s Bold Plan (Scientific American)
Alarmed by [2015’s record haze], the Indonesian government in 2015 released an unprecedented—some say unrealistic—plan (pdf) to restore roughly 2.5 million hectares of dry peatlands by 2020. “The fires and haze were horrible, especially for children and elders. Nobody wants to have that again,” says Nazir Foead, head of the Peatlands Restoration Agency (BRG). The two-year-old entity was created to block off 250,000 kilometers of canals, so water levels below the surface can rise back up again to rewet the peat—and, intriguingly, to find alternative crops able to keep these lands productive.
In 2017 BRG rewet an unprecedented 200,000 hectares of land. “What Indonesia is doing is amazing,” says Hans Joosten, a peatland expert at the University of Greifswald in Germany. In the last year, he says, Indonesia has rewet more land “than has been achieved in Europe in its entire history.” Still, that is only 8 percent of the country’s larger goal.
Top Coconuts Jakarta news stories from this week
