![A student holds a poster portraying President Joko Widodo during a rally against postponing the 2024 presidential election, Jakarta, Indonesia, April 21, 2022 (AP photo by Tatan Syuflana).](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/l_democracy-indonesia-05022022-1.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
Indonesian President Joko Widodo won the country’s presidential election in 2014 by presenting himself in part as a democratic reformer, a man of humble origins who would fight graft and curtail the self-dealing elite politics that dominate Jakarta. If at the start of Jokowi’s first term there was some hope that he would follow through on his lofty campaign promises, that all seems like a distant memory today. For most of his second term since being reelected in 2018, he has proven to be the opposite of a reformer, undermining democracy, advancing insider politics in which political dynasties are blossoming, cracking […]