Page 164 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

Media and Civil Society 149

Despite the support for Prabowo from major news outlets owned by his allies,
the election of Jokowi represented a hard-fought victory by the same alliance
of reformist media actors and civil society that has been central to Indonesia’s
democratization struggle for the past twenty years. For many, this outcome served
as confirmation of the country’s successful consolidation. Prodemocracy forces
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had come together to overcome the continued power of a reactionary, old-guard
coalition and discredit resurgent authoritarian ideals. This win by an outsider who
rose without personal wealth or elite connections also produced meaningful cir-
culation of leadership. Corruption scandals—fueled by leaks, investigations, and
partisan vendetta—facilitated this circulation of leadership, inflicting substantial
damage on the ruling party, Partai Demokrat, and frustrating President Yudho-
yono’s dynastic ambitions. Other “new-wave politicians” with clean reputations
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committed to fighting graft were also rising to high office at this time, notably
Jakarta’s new governor, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Bandung’s governor,
Ridwan Kamil.
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Only weeks after his inauguration, however, the new president’s limitations
became clear as legislators from Prabowo’s campaign coalition, who controlled 60 per-
cent of parliament, and others from Jokowi’s own PDIP party began collaborating to
undermine reform initiatives. Significantly, to avoid conflict, Jokowi did not defend
the KPK during his first year in office. Yet the agency continued its investigations,
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jailing or driving from office some of the most powerful in Indonesian politics, nota-
bly the DPR Speaker, Setya Novanto. Only three months after Donald Trump called
him “a great man” at a campaign rally in New York, Novanto was forced to resign as
Speaker in December 2015, following public protests and intense media coverage of
his attempts to extort $4 billion from a mining company. Commenting on the public
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pressure, Natalia Soebagjo, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Gov-
ernance at University of Indonesia noted, “Corruption cases are spoken about openly
in the media, and in social media, corruption issues often go viral.”
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Comparing Novanto’s fall to Watergate, observers viewed it as a “turning point”
in Indonesia’s fraught political history. However, Novanto again earned his title,
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“Mr. Teflon,” when Golkar elected him chair in 2016 and subsequently reappointed
him Speaker of the DPR.
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The PDIP chair and former president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, also repeatedly put
Jokowi in a difficult position with her own maneuvering, pushing cabinet appoint-
ments on him that were heavily criticized by his supporters. In early 2015, a KPK inves-
tigation revealed wrongdoing by Jokowi’s nominee for police chief, Budi Gunawan.
Public pressure, amplified by mainstream and social media, forced the president to
withdraw the nomination, prompting retaliation from the police, who declared two
KPK commissioners suspects on dubious charges. In March, an organization called
the Indonesian Grassroot Society Movement, known for its crowds-for-hire intim-
idation, reported Tempo to the police for allegedly libelous coverage of Gunawan’s
bank accounts. Then in July, an aspiring politician, Maruli Hendra Utama, filed suit
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against Tempo for defaming PDIP through its reporting on police actions against KPK
commissioners.
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These actions, seen as “criminalizing” anti-corruption efforts, sparked a new pub-
lic outcry, covered heavily by the media, that forced Jokowi to order his attorney gen-
eral to drop both cases. Finally, in 2016, seven out of ten parliamentary factions,
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led by PDIP, lobbied intensely to revise the 2002 law that had established the KPK
by stripping the agency of key powers. But once again, sustained media attention and