Hi Duncan Graham

Another insightful article.

You illustrate well how Joko owes his Presidency to Megawati Soekarnoputri's support. Joko knows it and the rest of Indonesian politics do to. So you're right that Mega needs to allow Joko to learn self-reliance.

Unlike Mega (daughter of freedom fighting Sukarno, often wearing a General's uniform) and unlike SBY (a general himself) Joko lacks any base of power in the Army. He must build such power because he needs to run the Army and not be its puppet.

Joko's support for Indonesia's on-again, off-again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Indonesia#Execution_Statistics execution system seems to be to impress nationalist supporters, especially those in the Army.

I certainly think that Joko's insistence on executing Australians will damage relations with Australia, Indonesia's most important neighbour, foolishly early in his Presidency.

Regards

Pete

A bit more into this story, whereby KPK is not really a disinterested player motivated by pure intentions to fight corruption.

The previous police chief, General Sutarman, is a political ally of SBY who gained enmity from Joko Widodo due to his failure to follow-up on the libelous "Obor Rakyat" magazine which published various racial slurs on Jokowi during last year's presidential elections.

With Sutarman's term expiring on October 2015, he has prepared his protege Commissioner General Suhardi Alius to succeed him. However, upon Jokowi's victory, on January 2015 he replaced Sutarman only months before expiry of his term. Suhardi Alius is also transferred from influential position of Criminal Investigation Department Head (KABARESKRIM) to a fringe research and development position.

Meanwhile, Joko Widodo wish to push General Budi Gunawan as police chief and his ally Commissioner General Budi Waseso as new KABARESKRIM. Budi Gunawan is close ally of Jokowi's political benefector, Megawati Sukarnoputri, the chairwoman of PDI-P.

As such, Jokowi wants to replace police leadership to a group loyal to his administration to enforce his plans on the police force.

The chief and deputy chief of KPK (Corruption Eradication Commission), Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto, has met with Sutarman since December upon rumours of Jokowi's intention to replace Sutarman early. We need to remember that Abraham Samad had aspirations to become Jokowi's vice presidential candidate. Samad has blackmailed Jokowi's party PDI-P by threatening to expose corruption cases under Megawati's presidency. His failure left him with a grudge against Jokowi and PDI-P.

Not long after Jokowi publicized his decision, suddenly KPK announced that his intended successor, Budi Gunawan, is a corruption suspect. This is somewhat odd since there is no previous investigations or case against Budi Gunawan. In reality, ALL senior police officers have 'fat accounts' and Budi Gunawan is not the most notorious amongst them.

Jokowi, believing KPK to have taken politically-motivated action to block his executive powers, is persisting in his intention to make Budi Gunawan as the new police chief. In the meantime, the police is also opening investigations into the KPK leaders' past cases in way of retaliation.

Basically, this whole issue is related to fighting between clique of old police chief Sutarman (allied with somewhat mercenary leadership of KPK) against clique of Budi Gunawan backed by Jokowi and PDI-P.

Jokowi is in difficult position, if he appoints Budi Gunawan, he is open to the accusation of being lax on corruption in public opinion. If he changed his mind, he will hand KPK a victory as mercenary 'gun for hire' which can be used by a political faction to eliminate its opponents. KPK would have been successful in vetoing Jokowi of his executive powers (in this case to appoint police chief), not a situation Jokowi is willing to tolerate.

Jokowi is in quite a bind, since there is virtually no other senior police with no 'fat accounts' and KPK can easily declare any candidate not to their mercenary liking to be a corruption suspect as well.

In conclusion, there definately needs to be police reform, however tendency of KPK leadership turning into a politicised mercenary political gun-for-hire also needs to be addressed.