Why Jokowi Doesn’t Matter
a Crash Course on modern Indonesian Vice Presidents
It’s official. I completed the absolutely quiailifiable survey of taxi drivers around Jakarta on the upcoming 2014 Presidential.
From all 18 cabbies polled, none was thrilled at the prospect of President Jokowi. Twelve expressed their discontent with different words, four were heard making “PffPff” sounds, one person used a bad word and the last driver shortchanged me a 50,000 Rupiah note.
The second piece of evidence I uncovered was historical:
Indonesia goes up and down with its Vice Presidents.
On the chart to the left, make note of the VP and then find out what happened to the President. The two Veeps for President SBY — Jusuf Kalla and Boediono — gave almost two different governments entirely.
So, history is showing us irrefutable proof that the choice of the Vice President will determine the future. Like definitively maybe.
And since nobody have any idea what or who Jokowi will choose, he doesn’t matter as much as most people think. Indeed, it is very much within the realm of possibility that Jokowi himself knows no more than any of us.
Publicly, he only ever answers with ambiguous “Yeah/Maybe/Ngauh” — and even when announcing his very own first Presidential aspiration, he put on record that someone else told him to do it. Likewise when he declared running for Gov’nor and so forth.
Quite mind-boggling but stranger things have happened in Indonesian politics.
note: I wrote a post on 2014 Election and Prabowo just a few weeks ago and I did tons on all the Presidents of all ages. Just to be clear that I’m not picking sides.
note 2: THE JOKOWI’S EFFECT ON INDONESIAN POLITICS — Laporan Efek Kampanye Versus Efek Jokowi: Elektabilitas Partai-Partai Jelang Pemilu Legislatif 2014 — by Indikator Politik Indonesia, April 4, 2014.
