Domestic issues to top Widodo's priorities

THE recent execution of eight drug-traffickers in Indonesia, including seven foreigners, has cast a negative spotlight on Indonesia's government. Many other Asian countries (including China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore) also impose capital punishment for drug offences and have executed convicted foreigners. The outcry over Indonesia is only the most recent, but seems to have attracted more attention, possibly because of the large number of simultaneous executions involving nationals of multiple countries, and the fact that they occurred relatively early in the term of President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, who took office only late last year.

Mr Widodo is a relative newcomer, not only to the international scene, but also to the stage of national politics. Elected Mayor of Solo in 2005, he went on to be elected Governor of Jakarta in 2012, and in 2014, he won the presidential race against Prabowo Subianto, a formidable opponent from the Jakarta political elite. To rise from a commoner to the highest office in Indonesia in merely nine years is exceptional by any standard.

Mr Widodo's rise was facilitated by political and fiscal decentralisation legislated and implemented since 1999. This democratised politics, but arguably also increased corruption at local levels, and deprived the central government of the resources and authority that would facilitate a more efficient national integration of governance, public finances, services, regulations and infrastructure.