“Ahok” Basuki Awaits Turn in the Limelight as Governor

Ahok Awaits Turn in the Limelight as Governor
By Jakarta Globe on 11:09 pm Mar 17, 2014
Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo returned to work this week after a heady weekend in which he was named his party’s presidential candidate and took part in a campaign rally for next month’s legislative election.

But all eyes at City Hall on Monday were on his deputy, Basuki Tjahaj Purnama, who presided over the administration’s weekly coordinating meeting — even with Joko in the room.
Speculation that Basuki, popularly known as Ahok, had begun taking over the governor’s duties in anticipation of Joko’s likely election win were quickly rebuffed by the deputy governor, who said that he had often filled in for the governor on previous occasions.
“I’ve often presided over these meetings when the governor has been called away to meet the president or government ministers,” he told reporters at City Hall.
With Joko the clear frontrunner to win the July 9 presidential election, the notion of a “Governor Ahok” is already gaining traction in both the political establishment and the general public discourse.
Basuki has previous executive experience as the head of East Belitung district in the province of Bangka-Belitung, but being governor of Jakarta would elevate him to an unprecedented position of power for a Chinese-Indonesian and a Christian — in a city where conservative Muslims balked at the appointment last year of a Christian woman as a ward chief.
Already there have been rumblings of protest from once-loyal supporters.
Boy Bernardi Sadikin, a city councilor and the son of the visionary late governor Ali Sadikin, said he had initially supported the idea of Basuki becoming governor should Joko, popularly known as Jokowi, leave to pursue the presidency.
However, he said last week that Basuki, known for his straight-talking ways and angry outbursts, wasn’t an appropriate figure to lead Jakarta.
“I personally don’t agree [with Basuki becoming governor] because he’s too temperamental like that,” Boy said as quoted by Tempo.co.
Agus Pambagio, a public policy expert at the University of Indonesia, agreed that Basuki needed to be more careful with his statements once he became governor.
“People have been unwilling [to complain about him] because he’s been protected by Jokowi this whole time,” he said on Saturday as quoted by Tempo.co.
“But later [with Joko gone] he can be attacked by people who hold a grudge against him.”
Agus said Basuki would also have to stop riling the City Council, following several public spats in which the deputy governor has often prevailed.
“If his development programs are held up by his political opponents it will be hard [to push them through],” Agus said.
He said the same went for Basuki’s relationship with longtime bureaucrats, many of whom have been ruffled by Joko and Basuki’s shakeup of the city administration, and in particular the public dressing downs given by the deputy governor that have gone viral on YouTube and other media.
Andrinof Chaniago, also a public policy expert at the University of Indonesia, said Basuki would need a deputy with the same sort of character as Joko, in order to balance out his own fiery nature.
“In addition to being of the same mind, Ahok needs to pick someone whose communication style is more refined,” he said on Saturday as quoted by Tempo.co.
For now, the question of who that person will be is a matter of intense speculation.
Basuki has said that because he and Joko are backed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), the new deputy will have to come from the PDI-P, Joko’s party.
He has identified Rieke Diah Pitaloka, a PDI-P legislator and former West Java governor hopeful, as a possible choice.
The two call each other good friends, having met when Rieke worked on Basuki’s campaign in Bangka-Belitung. They later reunited at the House of Representatives, before Basuki left to join Joko for the Jakarta campaign.
“But that depends on the decision of the internal meetings of the PDI-P and Gerindra,” Basuki said.
Technically the governor is responsible for choosing a deputy, but the PDI-P has been known to force its own choice onto unwilling officials.
That was the case in Surabaya last year, where Mayor Tri Rismaharini, whose previous deputy had resigned to take part in the East Java gubernatorial election, was saddled with a new deputy in the form of a PDI-P city councilor who had previously led a vote of no confidence against her.
The hugely popular mayor has since said she planned to resign amid the political pressure she was under.
Already there is talk that the PDI-P may be priming Boy, who has stated his rejection of a Basuki governorship, for the deputy governor’s job.
Boy declined to confirm the reports, saying only that the PDI-P had many qualified members and that it would “not be difficult to find a partner for Ahok.”
For now, Basuki said he had not made any special preparations to take over should Joko win the presidential poll.
He said he already knew Joko’s development plan for Jakarta and that it would not be a problem for him to continue implementing it once the governor was obliged to take leave of office in order to campaign for the election.
“There haven’t been any special preparations. I’ve been working together with him and helping him, so I already know what he wants,” Basuki said.
He added he would “certainly miss” Joko if the latter won the presidency and left City Hall, and said he had suggested that the governor hedge his bets by not resigning from the city administration in order to run in the presidential election.
“I don’t want him to resign [as governor],” Basuki said. “That way, if he doesn’t get elected [as president], he can always come back to being the governor.”