Indonesia's presidential electionYes he can

After many months waiting in the wings, a transformative candidate takes centre stage


Before Mr Yudhoyono stands down in October, Jokowi faces two big electoral tests. On April 9th Indonesia holds a parliamentary election. According to Indonesia’s election laws, the PDI-P, to which Jokowi belongs, must win at least 25% of the popular vote, or 20% of the seats, to nominate a presidential candidate by itself. The latest opinion polls show that the PDI-P has the support of about 20% of the potential voters. With the parliamentary election less than a month away, the PDI-P will hope that Jokowi’s star power is strong enough to push it above the nominating threshold. Otherwise it will have to partner up with another party. But even that would pose no threat to Jokowi’s candidacy: he is likely to have his pick of partners, as all the other parties would fall over themselves to associate themselves with him, some of them with the hope of providing him his vice-presidential running mate.

The presidential election itself takes place on July 9th. Most polls put support for Jokowi at about 40%, four times more than his closest rival, Prabowo Subianto, a former special-forces commander who now leads the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra). The Golkar party’s Aburizal Bakrie stands even further behind. Barring some unforeseen disaster, Jokowi looks unbeatable. It is even possible that he will secure the 50% of the votes that he would need to win the election in a single round, circumventing the need for a run-off in September.

Megawati’s apparent reluctance to endorse Jokowi as the PDI-P’s candidate has been striking, if not altogether odd. Some say that she, having served as president from 2001 to 2004, withheld her blessing while she weighed up another run for the presidency herself. She is the famous daughter of Indonesia’s founding president, Sukarno, and enjoys a unique claim to the party’s history. So perhaps she was dithering in the face of a personal decision. On the other hand, it made good tactical sense to delay the announcement of Jokowi’s official candidacy until it could make the biggest splash possible. Some observers had expected Megawati to wait even longer—say, until the very eve of polling day—so that her PDI-P cadres would campaign their hardest and not take their party’s victory for granted.

Ever since Jokowi, a furniture-seller who became mayor of the ancient Javanese city of Solo, swept to victory in the second round of the election for Jakarta’s mayor in 2012, he has been touted as a possible president. Pundits here have pored over every sign that Megawati might be willing to stand aside and anoint him as her party’s candidate. On March 11th speculation reached fever pitch, when Megawati and Jokowi went together to visit Sukarno’s grave in eastern Java, to pay their respects to the great man. Two days later it seems that, at least this once, the fuss was justified.

Now that his candidacy is confirmed, Jokowi should start facing much greater scrutiny. Voters still know very little about his positions on big questions of national policy. As in Solo earlier, his leadership in Jakarta has been characterised by a hands-on approach to fixing the sort problems that blight ordinary people’s lives: floods, traffic and poor housing, for example. This has made for a refreshing change from norm set by more aloof Indonesian leaders. The common touch makes him an especially formidable campaigner. But Jokowi could hardly adopt the same approach to all the problems faced by a president.

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