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Foreign concepts in Indonesia's third presidential debate

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In Brief

Indonesia’s third presidential debate on foreign policy, held on 22 June, presents both good and bad news for observers of Indonesia’s upcoming election. The good news is that neither candidate rocked the boat. They committed to maintaining the status quo, saying they would continue current president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s policy of a ‘thousand friends and zero enemies’.

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The bad news is that, for both candidates, foreign policy just seemed foreign.

Throughout the war of words, neither Joko Widodo (Jokowi) nor Prabowo Subianto seemed to take foreign policy seriously, treating it as an afterthought to domestic political considerations. It appeared that neither candidate had thought seriously about the many issues confronting Indonesia in its region, for example, in the South China Sea.

Jokowi entered the debate as an underdog. Despite Jokowi maintaining a slim margin in the polls, Prabowo’s campaign has been rapidly closing the gap. Burhanuddin Muhtadi, the executive director of the respected polling company Indikator Politik Indonesia, recently tweeted that the situation is now ‘critical’ for Jokowi. The margin is narrowing and it would not be surprising if in the end Prabowo narrowly claims the presidency.

Jokowi’s poor performance in the second debate last week didn’t help. It seemed to confirm assertions by the Prabowo camp that Jokowi is simply a puppet, a weak candidate who can’t do anything without his running mate Jusuf Kalla babysitting him.

On the other side, Prabowo has been trying to use the presidential debates to show himself as an even-tempered, mature politician with a big heart. Prabowo was even willing to acknowledge his opponent when he believed Jokowi was right. Prabowo tried to dispel the fear that he was just another intemperate dictator-in-making who would clamp down on Indonesian democracy. In this third debate, his goal was to project himself as a great statesman while trying to make sure that the people’s impression of Jokowi as a weak leader stuck.

But Jokowi performed much better than last week. After affirming his commitment to Indonesia’s free and active foreign policy, he highlighted the plight of Indonesian workers abroad and unexpectedly declared his support for UN membership for Palestine. Overall, he looked more in command and even managed to show that he could be decisive when he wants to, providing a strong rejoinder to claims about his weakness.

If anyone wants to use this debate as an indication of either candidates’ foreign policy, though, they will be left empty-handed. There was simply no discussion or debate on grand strategy (including on Indonesia’s foreign policy goals in Southeast Asia), on ASEAN or what to do about growing tension in the South China Sea.

Jokowi focused on good relationships and diplomacy as the solution to Indonesia’s problems without delving into any specifics. The debate seemed to pick up steam when Prabowo asked Jokowi about border disputes between Indonesia and its neighbours. Like a one-trick pony, Jokowi replied ‘diplomacy’.

Meanwhile, Prabowo kept giving vague answers about making the country prosperous and strong in order to be respected, as well as the need for Indonesia to defend its ‘national interest’.

Prabowo’s vague statements made it look as if he was caught off guard by Jokowi’s new-found assertiveness. And he made frequent references to bocor — that is, what he believes to be a vast sum of money that is allegedly being illicitly moved out of Indonesia — in a sloganeering and unconvincing manner.

More worrying was Jokowi’s non-answer on the South China Sea. He said Indonesia should not get involved if it could not help solve the problem due to fear of getting China offside. But, as Prabowo correctly argued, Indonesia should get involved in the South China Sea dispute as Indonesia’s claims overlap with China’s.

The issue of an ASEAN Economic Community, which was discussed briefly in the second debate, was only dealt with in passing. It was used to bounce the discussion back to the need of domestic reforms to increase competitiveness — instead of really going into the reasons Indonesia signed the agreement in the first place.

Australia escaped the debate unscathed. The wiretapping scandal was raised, and there were some mild jabs at Australia’s lack of trust in Indonesia (Prabowo even suggested Australia had a phobia toward Indonesia). However, Tony Abbott can rest easy knowing that both candidates actually agree on the importance of improving the relationship.

Both candidates’ lack of vigour during the debate could be attributed to their lack of mastery of foreign affairs or their unwillingness to offend neighbouring countries. One very potent reason, though, was to avoid insulting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

While Yudhoyono is increasingly unpopular, his Partai Demokrat still managed to receive around 10 per cent of the vote during the legislative election in April. With opinion polls suggesting the presidential race will be close, neither candidate can afford to offend the president, whose support may be pivotal in deciding the winner, by criticising his foreign policy.

Overall, the third debate suggests that Indonesia is set to lose its standing on the world stage once either of these less-than-worldly leaders assumes office.

Yohanes Sulaiman is a writer, analyst and lecturer at the Indonesian National Defense University.

This article first appeared here in the New Mandala.

2 responses to “Foreign concepts in Indonesia’s third presidential debate”

  1. This post was written before the 30 June announcement that SBY’s Democrat Party was abandoning neutrality and would support Prabowo. This could have a big impact on the election result.

    • Hi Ken:

      Thank you for your comment. Yes, you are right that this will have a big impact on the election result. The president is growing unpopular but he still has quite some followers, which is why the scandal-plagued Partai Demokrat ended up with around 10% of the vote in the legislative election.

      So yes, I would say that this may throw in around 2-3% to Prabowo’s camp, making this election to be very close. In fact at this point, it is very difficult now to actually predict who will win and it will depends on voters mobilization.

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