Jakarta Java Kini - Jakarta's City Magazine

With Jakarta’s citizens soon heading to the polls, it’s time to size up an ideal candidate fit for the superhuman task of running this crazy city

ON JULY 11, JAKARTA’S citizens will be heading to the polls to elect a new governor. The new metropolitan big cheese will have the perhaps unenviable task of tackling the Big Durian’s multifaceted problems. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of potential candidates for the job this time around. Incumbent governor Fauzi Bowo will be standing for his second term in office, although he’ll probably have to come up with a few more concrete pledges than he did last time around.

Up against Pak Fauzi are a number of potential candidates who are currently being hyped up by the country’s voracious media. The well-liked mayor of Solo, Joko Widodo (popularly known as Jokowi), is one of the candidates in the running after impressively transforming his city of origin.

Alex Noerdin will be the Golkar Party candidate and the current governor of South Sumatra launched his campaign on the back of his self-declared success in organising and hosting the recent SEA Games in Palembang. The fact that the said games were tainted by an alleged massive corruption scandal has been neatly airbrushed out of the picture by Mr Alex’s campaign team and he has vowed to solve the city’s traffic woes in just three years if he is elected. Well, let’s just say that we won’t be holding our collective breath on that one.

Three other gubernatorial candidates (Hidayat Nurwahid, Hendardji Soepandji and possibly Faisal Basri) will also be throwing their hats into an election ring which, to mix metaphors for a moment, will be a six-horse race in total. It’s fair to say that governor Fauzi hasn’t really set Jakarta alight during his first term in office and the city’s problems remain as intractable as ever. Jokowi is seen as a good people’s candidate and a figure able to challenge the comfort zone of the country and its capital’s political elite; however, Jakarta’s problems can at times seem to be almost insurmountable.

So, here’s a quick roundup of the most pressing issues that a fantasy Jakarta governor should address if he (or indeed she) is to make any dent at all in the city’s endless sea of troubles.

Firstly, our gubernatorial hero (Governator?) should be as free as it’s possible to be from the taint of the money politics that dominate this country and which so often lead to insidious corruption and political paralysis. Alas, it has been decreed by the powers that be that candidates will have no restrictions at all put upon their spending during the upcoming campaign, although they will have to account for any donations that they receive. Hopefully this will keep vote buying to a minimum.

Jokowi could become a dark horse in the race and pull off a surprise if voters decide to plump for a political paradigm shift in the capital, despite the candidate in question not having the resources of Fauzi Bowo at his disposal.

Secondly, and as pledged by Alex Noerdin, our putative Governator should put some serious effort into attacking the capital’s purgatorial traffic snarl ups. Evidently, only 20 per cent of Jakartans use public transportation and the Indonesian capital is the largest city in the world not to have its own subway system.

News stories touting the imminent construction of an MRT system slated to be operational by 2016 have been splashed across the media in recent weeks, but this is something we’ve been hearing for years now and tomorrow never seems to come. The pointless concrete monorail pillars on Jl. Rasuna Said rather suggest that any MRT project could also be bedevilled by avaricious politicians dipping their sticky mitts into the honeypot. Private and foreign investors have been burnt before in Jakarta, so why would they return for a second roasting? An upgrade of the city’s rusting fleet of buses may be a more realistic proposition in this context.

Thirdly, the capital may have avoided any biblical flooding this year, but the neck-high sogginess, huge financial losses and sad tales of personal disaster of 2002 and 2007 may well return again in the future. Some progress has been made on this issue in recent years, with the presence of the East Flood Canal (KBT), as well as the repairing of drains and regular river dredging. However, when the next big one hits, the city could well find itself paralysed once again.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) insists that claims of a five-yearly flood cycle are a myth, although those who have previously had to catch a rubber dinghy round the corner to the local supermarket may take issue with this statement. Of course, ultimately, nothing can be done about Jakarta’s low-lying geographical location and its subsiding soils, and a plan to move the Indonesian capital to the city of Palangkaraya on the island of Borneo has been seriously floated (if you’ll pardon the pun). However, so much more could still be done to protect Jakarta from another serious soaking.

Finally, our Governator superhero should take a sober look at poverty in the capital. The recent rise in the price of petrol at the pumps will inevitably lead to a higher rate of inflation in Indonesia, which will in turn see general poverty increase before it decreases. On the plus side though, we look forward with bated breath to a new Rp. 25 million (US$ 2,750) house for the poor project that is currently being developed.

In a world in which first-world social compacts that date back to World War II are currently under attack, as austerity measures bite and the trickle-up global “free market” economy sputters, there’s perhaps little hope of meaningful change regarding Indonesian and Jakartan injustice and inequality. Of course, if people start to organise and press their demands in the public arena, then it could be different story. Politics shouldn’t just be about pushing a lever every five years after all, even if there were a superhero candidate standing.