Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta is notorious for being among the cities with the worst traffic congestion in the world. Yet the traffic horror there is nothing compared to that in the Sumatran province of Jambi, at least for the past few years. In Jakarta, peak hour gridlock normally lasts a few hours: in Jambi, however, traffic jams can take days, trapping thousands of vehicles in gridlock stretching for tens of kilometres.

The vehicles clogging Jambi’s roads are not fancy cars like in the streets of Jakarta, but dusty, diesel-powered trucks overloaded with coal. Blessed—or cursed—with almost 2 billion tonnes of coal reserves, the fifth largest of any province in Indonesia, Jambi has not only attracted mining investment but also tens of thousands of coal trucks from nearby provinces. The trucks use public roads to transport coal from multiple, scattered mining sites in the province’s inner regions to the port of Talang Duku in the east.

It has not been lost on local communities that the traffic mess became acute after 2020, when Jakarta’s attempts to recentralise governance of the mining sector came into effect through a revised Coal and Minerals Mining Law and the controversial—and partially unconstitutional—Omnibus Law on Job Creation. Both laws aimed to remove provincial governments’ authority to issue mining permits as previously regulated in the 2009 Coal and Minerals Mining Law.

The Omnibus Law was the culmination of a long-term attempt to reverse the decentralisation of mining regulation enshrined in the 2004 Law on Regional Government. A 2014 update of that law stripped regencies (kabupaten) and cities of key powers to regulate and manage the mining sector. The 2020 legislation recentralises mining permitting functions in the national Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, while allowing the national government to delegate permitting powers to provinces at its discretion. (Though to complicate the matter, the national government issued a Presidential Regulation in 2022 that restored mining permitting powers to provincial governments. This regulation, as is typical of the Indonesian legal system, overlaps with the 2020 Mining Law and the Omnibus Law. Moreover, its position in the Indonesian regulation hierarchy is lower than legislation, creating new ambiguities.)

The decentralisation that followed the end of the New Order in 1998 paved the way for local oligarchies to take regional Indonesia’s natural riches, changing the status quo of a sector which used to be the domain of the national oligarchy during the Suharto years. This period was marked by a flourishing of patronage politics, in which local politicians built clientelist links with local economic elites who financed their candidacies in local elections in exchange for mining concessions. Numerous local leaders have been caught by Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in mining-related corruption cases.

The stated goal of this recentralisation process, as stated in the 2020 mining law, is “to improve the effectivity and value-added” of the mining sector. This, however, seems to be not a sole reason, as the mining sector is tightly connected to oligarchic forces connected to the central government. Regardless of the motivations for it, one of the effects of the recentralisation has been to make it difficult, if not impossible, for local governments to offer meaningful solutions to pressing mining-related issues—as Jambi’s highway traffic disaster illustrates.

Jambi and its complicated coal-related problems

On the one hand, under Article 91 of the 2020 mining law coal mining companies are mandated to use designated “mining roads” in “the course of undertaking mining enterprises. But on the other hand, utilising public roads for transporting coal is not explicitly forbidden either. This ambiguity creates a loophole that benefits mining corporations; what’s more, the omnibus law that effected amendments to this mining legislation in 2020 does not require companies to obtain an environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) to start operation, making it easier for coal companies to begin activities without taking environmental and social impacts seriously.

In the wake of the mining recentralisation scheme, traffic congestion caused by coal trucks has become a daily occurrence on Jambi’s main roads. A traffic jam in early March 2023 lasted 28 hours, resulting in patients dying in trapped ambulances, village kids left unable to go to school, and inter-regional traders seeing their vegetables and fish spoil en route. This is not to mention the damage done by coal trucks to Jambi’s roads, an issue which has lately gained national notoriety.

This never happened before 2020, the year Jakarta finalised its recentralisation of mining governance. But because of the ambiguity of current regulations, it is difficult to determine who is truly responsible for the post-2020 traffic chaos and its impacts on public safety and infrastructure. Jakarta has refused to fix Jambi’s damaged roads, while Jambi’s governor has come under intense pressure from constituents, some of whom have filed a lawsuit against him and other local officials over their handling of the issue.

The damage to public roads has put a strain on the provincial budget, pushing the provincial government to pour tens of billion rupiah into the construction and repair of special mining roads. The Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR)’s Commission V, responsible for transport policy, has noted that at 1.2 trillion rupiah ($120 million), the estimated cost to rehabilitate Jambi’s roads is double the revenue the provincial government gains every year from the coal sector.

Part of the problem is the incentives of coal truck drivers, who are employed on a freelance basis and without job protections. They are paid based on tonnage scheme: the more coal they transport, the more money they will earn. As a consequence, most if not all drivers are forced to carry coal far above the maximum legal limit, endangering themselves, their trucks, and other road users. Their presence at the forefront of the traffic crisis has made them scapegoats, leading to numerous conflicts between them and the locals living alongside public roads.

Toothless provincial government

In the opinion of Jambi’s governor, these complex problems are caused by Jakarta’s “recklessness” in issuing mining permits without getting local administrations involved. Before the 2020 takeover of mining regulation by the central government, the number of coal trucks on the road was far lower than that of today.

In addition, even though the coal sector had been notorious for clientelism and political patronage, Jambi’s provincial government had fairly strict regulations to deal with potential problems. Three provincial regulations issued in 2012, 2013 and 2015 outlined clear and specific guidelines on which roads coal trucks must and must not use, sanctions for coal companies who violate regulations, and the obligation of regents (bupati) in relation to mitigating the impacts of coal trucking in their regions. The use of rivers for transporting coal was also clearly defined.

While still far from perfect in terms of implementation, it is undeniable that these locally made regulations have far more complete mitigation plans than those made in Jakarta, which partly explains why acute traffic jams never happened before 2020. Before recentralisation, truck loads were regularly weighed at Jambi’s weigh stations to make sure that they complied with the rules. This, however, is no longer the case because coal oligarchs know that local leaders are toothless, while Jakarta is too far away to see their wrongdoing, let alone give punishment.

Previously when problems arose with the industry, a governor or a regent could cancel mining permits. In 2015, one regency in Jambi, Batanghari, revoked 60 out of 95 coal mining permits in operation. Now, however, Jambi’s governor can only offer short-term remedies, such as ordering temporary halts to trucking coal. There have been no deterrent sanctions from the governor, as he has no power to issue any that are backed with the force of legislation.

In an effort to discipline the industry Jambi’s governor has written to the national Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources to request a temporary ban on transporting coal on many public roads in the province, but this will be subject to a long bureaucratic process and a long wait for the ministry to respond and make a decision. In the mean time, as if to emphasise the governor’s powerless position, Jambi’s police force has on several occasions announced that it will attempt to enforce temporary halts on coal traffic.

With the skyrocketing prices of coal in the international market it is unlikely that Jakarta will suspend coal mining in Jambi’s mining sites, although the DPR’s Commission V has backed local Jambi leaders’ calls to do so. The Commission has voiced its concern about what has been happening in Jambi, but given the timing of their response this appears to be merely a political gimmick ahead of the February 2024 elections. The traffic problems having occurred since 2020, while their concern was only voiced just recently. Furthermore, their “pressure” was only exhibited during a public hearing with the provincial government, without serious follow up. Likewise, the recent visit to Jambi by the DPR’s Commission VII, which oversees mining policy, similar gave the impression of lip service. It is impossible both commissions V and VII did not know the powerless position of the governor as they were responsible for making laws that paved the way for recentralisation.

Commit to democracy, not recentralisation

It is true that decentralisation of the mining sector bred clientelism and patronage politics. But recentralising its governance has proven to be not a wise solution either. It not only gives rise to social and environmental problems like the chaos on Jambi’s roads, but also may not entirely wipe out clientelism and patronage politics. Instead, it has likely switched the practice from regional Indonesia to Jakarta, just like during Suharto’s centralised regime.

Furthermore, recentralisation creates confused lines of democratic accountability in the eyes of Jambi’s people, in whose minds decentralisation remains the status quo. To demand change they have to pressure their local leaders. Similarly, the latter are bound by a social contract with their constituents and know the consequence if they fail to meet the demand. The five-year term is their trial and will be evaluated in the ballot box should they fail to deliver. This makes the previous scheme of coal management in Jambi more “responsive” to people’s demands, even though, once again, it was far from ideal. Recentralisation has also emboldened coal oligarchs’ bargaining position, as they know exactly that local leaders do not have the power to respond to people’s demands to hold them accountable. This is likely the reason why they ignored the Jambi’s governor’s invitation to discuss the mess their business created because they are fully aware that their stakeholders are in Jakarta, not Jambi.

What Jakarta should have done and should do is to improve checks and balances in local democracy and strengthen rule of law. The root to clientelism and patronage politics is the high price of direct local elections and the weak law enforcement. Fixing these will uproot the problems. A commitment to strengthening public institutions, not opting for recentralisation, is needed so that problems relating to dirty politics, corruption in the mining sector, and law enforcement can be effectively mitigated. Yet sadly, what has been occurring in the past few years is just the opposite: elites have hijacked vital public institutions, resulting in the decline of Indonesia’s democracy.

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The two sons of Indonesian President Joko Widodo are said to be plotting their political futures, as their father is set to go into retirement after the presidential elections in February 2024. If they do, it would only cement perceptions that Jokowi is seeking to build a political dynasty. How Jokowi’s two sons perform on the political scene will have a bearing on the legacy of the president and his family post-2024.

Gibran Rakabuming, the president’s eldest son and incumbent mayor of Surakarta (Solo), is eyeing higher political office: either the governorship of Jakarta or Central Java. Gibran’s younger brother Kaesang Pangarep is said to eyeing an initial entry into politics by campaigning for the mayorships of Depok or South Tangerang, both economically important cities within greater Jakarta. (Bobby Nasution, the president’s son-in-law, is currently the mayor of Medan, Indonesia’s fourth-largest city.)

Gibran is looking at using his high-profile position as mayor of Solo to run for a gubernatorial seat in 2024. He could be eyeing the governorship in Central Java—a job currently held by Ganjar Pranowo, the who has secured the Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P’s) nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

A second option would be for Gibran to contest for the governorship of Jakarta. If Gibran decides to run there, he would be able to build on his father’s legacy. During his tenure as governor from 2012 to 2014, Jokowi accelerated construction of the capital’s mass transportation system, enhanced its flood management system and initiated improvement programs in informal settlements.

According to the latest survey results, Gibran has the lead among potential candidates for the Central Java contest scheduled for late 2024, while there are as yet no public surveys that gauge Gibran’s prospects for the Jakarta contest.

As it stands, there are greater prospects of Gibran running in Central Java rather than Jakarta. Solo, which is part of Central Java province, has a relatively homogenous Javanese ethnic demographic and a large Christian minority. This would favour someone with Gibran’s strong Javanese and secular background,  in a context where aliran-based political–cultural identities and rivalries are still influential in determining many peoples’ voting behaviour. Jakarta, meanwhile, has a more heterogenous demographic and is more complex politically—and is not the PDI-P stronghold that Central Java is. The capital, especially since the rise of Anies Baswedan in the 2017 gubernatorial election, has lately become the base of conservative Muslim voters, which would be an obstacle for Gibran.

Securing the Central Java gubernatorial seat could mean a lot for Gibran, since it could be a launchpad for the presidency, with the province being home to almost 28 million enrolled voters. If Gibran succeeds in Central Java, this would bolster PDI-P’s already strong hold on the province. Along with Bali, West Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, and some Eastern Indonesian regions, continuing a record of landslide victories in Central Java is crucial to helping the PDI-P keep up its seat count in the national and local parliaments, and helps preserve the nationalistic and pluralistic image of the party.

As Gibran weighs his gubernatorial options, his younger brother Kaesang Pangarep is said to be eyeing the mayorships in Depok or Southern Tangerang as part of the round of local elections scheduled for later in 2024. While Kaesang is currently not a member of any political party, his recent hints of his political ambitions has attracted the attention of a number of political parties interested in recruiting him. In particular, PDI-P, which already counts his older brother, brother-in-law and father in its ranks, is keen to recruit Kaesang.

Kaesang, a businessman, YouTuber and soccer club owner, would be expected to attract young voters in Depok, a satellite city in southern Jakarta. His social media postings expressing whimsical attitudes, life in the presidential family, and collaborations with content creators, stand-up comedians and celebrities have helped him to gain many followers in social media. Kaesang’s profile also fits Depok’s demographic of educated voters and young professionals. Although Depok is a part of West Java, it has always been considered as closer to Jakarta, which might encourage PDI-P to capture Depok in the local election next year.

But a run for the Depok mayorship is not without risks. Depok has been a bastion for the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) since the first direct mayoral contest in 2005. Since then, the mayoral seat has always been occupied by a cadre from the Islamist party. PDI-P has been defeated by PKS several times when it tried to win the mayoral seat in Depok, and the two parties have maintained a political spat over PDI-P’s criticism of PKS’ governance of the city, in particular the management of fuel prices. Yet PKS has many loyal voters and party networks across the city, and PDI-P’s loss in Depok would likely reflect its uncertain prospects of winning seats in Bandung, Bogor and Bekasi, other cities in West Java home to large Muslim voter bases who share family ties or same Islamic teachings, and where PKS holds local legislative majorities.

With Kaesang’s chances in Depok uncertain, another political option is that he runs for the mayoral contest in Solo if his elder brother Gibran decides to gun for the governorship in Central Java. As President Jokowi’s family has strong approval ratings in Solo, Kaesang would be suitable to build on the legacy of his father and elder brother, especially given thatdynasticism among Solo residents remains generally acceptable and most residents  are in favour of Gibran’s potential run for Central Java. Under Gibran’s tenure Solo’s infrastructure, symbolised by the Shekih Zayed Al-Nahyan mosque and a new elevated railway, has been improved. Gibran has also revitalised the city’s cultural and small enterprises centre.

Both Gibran and Kaesang are increasingly viewed as the political successors of their father. The problem here is that no one in the Jokowi family, including the president, holds a strategic position within the PDI-P party structure at the national and local levels. While PDI-P might want to capitalise on the electability of Jokowi’s sons, it would also have to contend with their potential “independence”, as is the case with the father. This might complicate the political trajectories for his sons, especially after he leaves office in October 2024. To boost their political careers in the future, both of them might be well-advised to secure a more strategic position within the party’s structure.

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Much has been written of late on the growing relationship between Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), particularly its economic aspects. Over the past five years, the UAE has emerged as the largest Gulf-state investor in Indonesia, with bilateral trade projected to grow from the US$4 billion in 2021 to US$10 billion by 2030. Some US$44.6 billion in future Emirati investment has been promised, including joint development of major infrastructure, energy and IT projects.

Less attention has been paid to the burgeoning religious relations between the two nations, especially a professed shared commitment to combatting radicalisation, promoting Islamic moderation and deepening inter-faith understanding. Such commentary as has appeared in media and scholarly outlets has generally been favourable, frequently citing the complementarity of Indonesia’s rich tradition of religious tolerance with the Emirates’ well-funded international programs on peace and cross-faith dialogue.

Little critical scrutiny has been given to the details of religious relations between Indonesia and the UAE. Behind the carefully crafted statements and stage-managed events lie a tangle of domestic political and strategic interests, not all of which are shared, and nor are they necessarily likely to result in greater religious moderation in either country, let alone globally.

Here I argue that Indonesia–Emirates religious diplomacy has multiple drivers, not all of which accord with liberal notions of moderation. Moderation is commonly defined as the avoidance of extremes and display of self-restraint and reasonableness. A key difficulty here is that this is a relational definition, in that moderation is defined vis-à-vis behaviour or views that are deemed excessive. Deciding what is excessive or unreasonable is often highly subjective. Is the propagation of puritanical religious views extreme or pious, for example? Are calls for major changes to a political system dangerously excessive or legitimate comment?

Certain aspects of the moderation agenda put forward by Indonesia and the UAE do enjoin religious openness and exchange, while contesting faith-based militancy. But other aspects point to fundamentally immoderate intentions, particularly related to the suppression of domestic political dissent. Indeed, one aim of the diplomacy of moderation is to legitimise autocratic state actions that curtail the rights of civil society groups in both countries.

The growth in bilateral religious diplomacy

In the increasingly warm personal relationship that has grown between Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and UAE President Muhammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan (commonly shortened to MBZ), religion comes second only to economic matters as a feature of their public utterances and policy initiatives.

When the two leaders meet, they regularly praise their respective nations’ efforts to combat radicalism and to strengthen religious moderation. During his 2021 visit to Abu Dhabi, Jokowi said: “I see that religious moderation and diversity in the UAE are widely respected. And that is the area of cooperation we would like to explore more because we both share the closeness in the vision and character of moderate Islam that propagates tolerance.”

This has been accompanied with bilateral agreements and cooperation to promote counter-radicalisation efforts and advocacy of religious tolerance. In 2020, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding, the paramount point of which was to “promote concepts of religious moderation, values of tolerance and raising public awareness of the risks of extremism.” Particular reference was made by Indonesian officials to wasatiyyah, an Arabic term meaning “centre” or “middle”, but which is also often used to denote moderation.

Over the past three years, more than 200 Indonesian imams have been sent to UAE to take up interim roles in major mosques and to “study how Islam in UAE is fully tolerant and contributes to creating peace in society”. Indonesian politicians and Islamic scholars have also participated regularly in international religious conferences run by the Emiratis and a number of eminent Indonesian academics have been appointed to the advisory boards of UAE Islamic institutions.

Commanding the most headlines has been UAE’s “mosque diplomacy”. Recently, construction was completed on a lavish US$20 million replica of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Surakarta, Jokowi’s home city. MBZ and Jokowi officially opened the mosque in November 2022, prior to the G20 summit in Bali, to which Jokowi had invited MBZ to be a guest of honour. The mosque has been described by local officials as a “pioneer of religious moderation” which helps “address the contemporary society’s vulnerability to fragmentation”. The UAE is also currently erecting a large mosque in Jokowi’s honour in Abu Dhabi.

At first sight, there appears to be much to applaud in these closer religious ties between Indonesia and UAE. Indonesia has not previously had strong relations with any of the Gulf states, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, and even these have often been strained due to maltreatment of Indonesian domestic workers and accusations that Saudi religious influence fuels intolerance and jihadist violence in Indonesia. The UAE’s ambitious international religious moderation program brings the prospect of raising Indonesia’s profile and clout as a source of innovative thinking on religious reform.

Indonesia’s Islamic soft power

Jokowi has always had a supremely pragmatic approach to foreign affairs, viewing diplomacy as being primarily about generating economic opportunities for Indonesia, whether it be attracting foreign capital and technology or selling Indonesian goods and services abroad.. But religion—and especially religious moderation—has been a major secondary factor in his international interactions. In fact, it has become a key form of Indonesian “soft power” that he has consistently championed during his presidency.

Over the past half century, Indonesia has enjoyed a reputation abroad as a tolerant and harmonious Muslim-majority nation. Following the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC, and the ensuing “Global War on Terror”, Indonesia attracted Western attention as one of the few Muslim-majority democratic nations in the world that proudly proclaimed its moderation, and was thus feted as an example from which other Muslim countries should learn.

Jokowi’s predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s most diplomatically adept president, traded heavily on this moderate image and strode the world extolling his nation’s religious virtues. Major Indonesian Islamic organisations also sought to benefit by seeking funding from foreign donors for their “moderate” educational and outreach programs, including scholarships, money for schools and development of anti-radicalisation projects.

Soon after becoming president in 2014, Jokowi took up the Islamic moderation theme in a more specific way than Yudhoyono. He adopted the Islam Nusantara (Archipelagic Islam) concept formulated by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation. The concept’s essence was that Indonesian Islam had unique and commendable characteristics because it married local culture with Islamic legal and theological traditions. NU intended the concept to challenge what it saw as a growing “Arabisation” of Indonesian Islam driven by the belief that Middle Eastern Islam was superior to, or more pure than, indigenous variants. Jokowi gave prominence to Islam Nusantara in numerous speeches abroad for several years (albeit without mentioning Arabisation) and he also instructed his foreign ministry to incorporate Islam Nusantara into its official messaging.

This had both political and diplomatic motivations. NU is Jokowi’s chief base of support among Muslim voters, a majority of whom voted for his opponent, Prabowo Subianto in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections. Without NU’s backing, Jokowi would likely have lost both races.

A grateful Jokowi was happy to expound NU’s Islam Nusantara and raise the organisation’s profile globally. NU had long felt that it had far less international attention than it deserved, given its size and the quality of its Islamic scholarship, and therefore welcomed having its ideas presented abroad. Jokowi probably also felt that Indonesia’s religious moderation was a natural diplomatic selling point among Western leaders preoccupied with the threat of Islamic militancy.

After several years, Jokowi shifted the focus of his moderation messaging as the limitations of Islam Nusantara became apparent. Most Indonesian Islamic organisations were cool on the concept, seeing it as too NU-centric and not representative of their own religious views and practices. Moreover, doubts arose about the applicability of Islam Nusantara to other Muslim societies.

In 2018 Jokowi signalled a change of tack by appointing Din Syamsuddin, the former chairman of Muhammadiyah, NU’s great rival, to a new position of Special Presidential Envoy for Interfaith Dialogue and Cooperation. A conference of international scholars was organised in Indonesia in the middle of that year, which endorsed “Islam Wasatiyyah” as a pivotal concept for promoting peace and tolerance. The term wasatiyyah had the advantage of already being in common international usage and acceptable to a wide range of Muslim states and movements. Thereafter, Jokowi and his officials made frequent reference to Islam Wasatiyyah, thereby allowing Indonesia to more easily align with international Islamic discourses.

The election of Yahya Cholil Staquf as NU chairman in late 2021 has seen Jokowi again show strong favour to NU as a source of religious diplomacy. Yahya, who has long been close to Jokowi and is a member of the president’s advisory council, had been diligently pursuing building international networks over several years, using various concepts, the most recent of which is called Humanitarian Islam.

The most controversial part of the Humanitarian Islam concept is its call for thorough-going reform of Islamic jurisprudence as a means of delegitimatising radical interpretations and creating more tolerant and irenic understandings. Yahya persuaded Jokowi to support a new religious dialogue initiative known as the Religious Forum 20 (R20) in the run up to the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022, of which Indonesia was the chair. Generous funding for the event was secured from Saudi Arabia’s Muslim World League.

This decision was controversial as the R20 displaced the long-established US-based Interfaith Forum 20 (IF20) which had preceded annual G20 meetings since 2014. Opinion is divided within officialdom and civil society regarding the outcome of the R20, and there is now intense competition between R20 and IF20 to organise the 2023 pre-G20 religious forum in New Delhi. Jokowi has sought to strengthen the R20’s bid by making NU the permanent organiser. If the R20 is unsuccessful, it would be a blow to Indonesia’s efforts to place itself at the centre of global religious diplomacy.

The UAE’s moderate makeover

The Emirates, like Indonesia, regards the economic aspect of the bilateral relationship as the most important, but in its case, the nexus between religious and economic issues is far more tightly interwoven than is the case for Indonesia. The UAE is pursuing a policy of economic transformation in order to create a thriving, sustainable post-fossil fuel-based economy. This not only involves diversifying UAE’s predominantly oil-based economy by attracting and developing a wide range of new industries—such as IT, clean energy technology, financial services and defence manufacturing—but also creating a cosmopolitan and multi-cultural society which is enticing for expatriates who will bring the necessary expertise to enable sweeping economic restructuring.

The UAE has pursued a “Look East” policy for the past decade, placing greater focus on Asia. Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia and with prospects of becoming one of the world’s top five economies in the next decade or two, presents an attractive option to the Emirates.

Religion is a key part of the Emirates’ makeover. MBZ, the main architect of this this process, is determined to replace the his country’s image as a traditional, rather puritanical Islamic society with one that is open, pluralistic and welcoming of different faiths and cultures. An ambitious program has been implemented over the past 15 years to achieve this, placing particular emphasis on interfaith outreach and Islamic moderation. The UAE has opened diplomatic relations with Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords and is now constructing a massive multi-billion-dollar Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi which will feature a Catholic church, a synagogue and a mosque—all on an opulent scale. It describes the project as a manifestation of “Common Humanity”. The Emirates is also building large Hindu and Sikh temples and has funded a succession of international interfaith conferences and initiatives.

Establishing itself as a credible voice for moderation has been more challenging for the Emirates as it lacks home-grown ulema (Islamic scholars) and institutions of high standing in the Muslim world. As a result, it has had to recruit reputable ulema from abroad and form new organisations capable of raising UAE’s religious profile. Its chief recruits have been Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, a Mauritanian scholar; his student Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a prominent US-based scholar; and Sheikh al-Habib Ali al-Jifri, a Yemeni Sufi (mystical) scholar.

New institutions followed soon after. In 2013 the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (FPPMS) was founded, headed by bin Bayyah, with the aim of building international networks and producing Islamic scholarship supportive of moderation. Bin Bayyah has published extensively and travelled the world propounding his views on religion and peace as well as correct political behaviour for Muslims. The following year, the Muslim Council of Elders was set up, with the stated objective of “extinguishing” sectarian and jihadist “fires” in the region and promoting humanitarian values. Ali al-Jifri’s main vehicle was the Tabah Foundation, which challenges what it sees as “fundamentalist” thought using Sufi ideals. The UAE also founded Hedayah, an international body to counter violent extremism, and created a Ministry of Tolerance in 2016.

UAE religious engagement with Indonesia is part of this effort to rebrand the Emirates; Indonesia’s reputation as a stronghold of religious tolerance makes it a useful partner. In effect, the Emirates is hoping that closer and more high-profile relations with Indonesia and other religiously diverse and tolerant nations will reflect positively upon it, helping it to appear more like its international partners.

Indonesia and the UAE also have similarities in their legal and devotional practices that make international partnerships easier. The Emirates is often incorrectly seen as sharing the strict Wahhabist doctrine of its neighbour, Saudi Arabia—but it in fact adheres to the mainstream Sunni law schools and has strong Sufi traditions, as does Indonesia. UAE religious institutions such as the Muslim Council of Elders and the Tabah Foundation directly contest Wahhabist doctrine, as also does NU in Indonesia, and they deploy the term Ahlul Sunnah wal Jamaah (“followers of the tradition of Prophet Muhammad and the community”—in effect, mainstream Sunni Islam) in seeking to exclude Wahhabists and other perceived fundamentalist groups.

Indonesian Islamic scholars with expertise in traditional jurisprudence thus have much in common with their Emirati counterparts. Several senior Indonesian Islamic scholars, such as Professor Quraish Shihab, hold advisory board positions in Emirati Islamic organisations. In 2022, FPPMS bestowed on Jokowi the Hassan bin Ali International Peace Prize for his G20 leadership and also invited Indonesia’s vice president to be a keynote speaker at their annual Peace Forum. For its part, Indonesia ensured that Abdallah bin Bayyah spoke at the R20 conference in Bali and at other interfaith events.

Less moderate than it seems?

To what degree is the Indonesian and Emirati rhetoric of tolerance and moderation genuine?  At one level, both nations have a strong interest in enjoining moderation.  Indonesia has grappled with a serious terrorism problem since the early 2000s, and, although attacks have been rare in recent years, much is due to successful police counter-terrorism operations rather than ebbing terrorist recruitment. The UAE’s terrorism threat is less severe but nonetheless present.

Whether the kinds of “civilisational” discourses favoured by the two governments will have any effect on extreme radicalisation is questionable, given that militant Muslims usually reject the authority of mainstream or official ulema. Undoubtedly, also, both Indonesia and the Emirates aspire in a broad sense to have harmonious, plural and tolerant societies, and are bent on inculcating these values in their communities. Their espousal of religious moderation thus has some substance.

But at another level, Indonesia and UAE are using “moderation” in an instrumental and selective way for domestic political purposes. Both the MBZ and Jokowi governments have repressed local Islamist movements, often using methods that breach civil liberties.  The UAE aggressively targets Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and its sympathisers, which it sees as one of the major sources of opposition to the monarchy. Amnesty International says there are currently at least 32 political prisoners in jail and in recent years almost 100 Muslim intellectuals and activists from the Brotherhood-linked al-Islah Islamist group have been tried and jailed under a vaguely worded but draconian counter-terrorism law. Moreover, the UAE uses state-employed ulema, such as Bin Bayyah and Hamza Yusuf, to argue for political quietism and obedience to the ruler, thus seeking to cast dissent as sinful.

The Jokowi government has also quashed Islamist activism that it deems a political threat, albeit somewhat less harshly. It banned Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia in 2017 and the Islamic Defenders Front in 2020—movements which had tens of thousands of members—on grounds including involvement in terrorism and sedition that many observers believe to be unsubstantiated. Numerous Islamist leaders have either been charged and convicted of questionable offences or forced from public view on threat of investigation into alleged criminal behaviour. Both governments behave immoderately when it comes to suppressing opposition but use their religious diplomacy of moderation to deflect attention from their autocratic tendencies. Most of their fellow world leaders are happy to ignore or play down such excesses.

It is also the case that, despite their apparent warm relations, the UAE and Indonesia sometimes pursue contrary agendas. A recent case is the R20 conference in Bali, largely funded by the Emirates’ rival, Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah’s Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (FPPMS) pointedly hosted the US-based IF20 as part of its annual Peace Forum in Abu Dhabi last December, enabling the IF20 to demonstrate it was still active despite its exclusion from the broader 2022 G20 program.  FPPMS and IF20 have made clear their desire to supplant Indonesia’s NU-organised R20 and restore the IF20 to the next G20. In effect, Indonesia and UAE, through their proxies, are now competitors to manage what is arguably the world’s premier interfaith event.

Despite the lofty rhetoric of Indonesian and Emirati religious diplomacy, hard-headed and politically self-interested considerations drive the use of moderation and tolerance as strategic commodities. If aspects of these religious programs succeed in implanting moderate and pluralistic values in their respective societies, then there will be cause for praise. But it is also the case that moderation has also become a tool for crimping the ability of Indonesians and Emiratis to organise and express themselves freely. From this perspective, the diplomacy of religious moderation has an empty ring to it.

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Why is it that in the past few years Indonesia’s democratic scores have fallen while public satisfaction with government performance remains high?

Based on the Economist’s Democracy Index Report for 2022, Indonesia received the same score as in 2021, at 6.71 points out of 10, but its ranking fell from 52 to 54 out of a total of 167 countries. Similarly, from the data produced by Freedom House, Indonesia’s democratic score fell from 65 in 2017 to 59 in 2022.

Indeed, Indonesia’s deteriorating democratic fundamentals has given rise to a scholarly consensus about “democratic regression” and the general tightening of the democratic space in the Jokowi era.

But surveys of public opinion suggest that Indonesians do not share this deepening pessimism: instead, they demonstrate that there is consistent support for Jokowi’s government. The ISEAS Indonesian National Survey Project conducted in September 2022 highlighted that public satisfaction with the president increased marginally from 68% in the 2017 version to 71.8% in 2022. Another Kompas survey conducted from 25 January to 4 February 2023 also noted that general satisfaction with the current government stood at 69.3%, a marked increase from a similar survey conducted at the start of Jokowi’s second term (58.8%).

More broadly, Indonesians are strongly attached to democracy. Data from a 2022 Indikator survey indicates that 3 in 4 Indonesians believe that democracy is “the best system for Indonesia, even though it is not perfect”. This percentage has risen steadily since Indikator first posed this question to respondents in June 2012 (55.6%). There has therefore been a steady consolidation of public trust in democracy in the last 10 years. What accounts for the disparity between declining democratic scores and increased satisfaction with government performance?

Different conceptions of democracy

I would argue that the main reason why deteriorating democratic fundamentals as measured by international rating agencies are not reflected in the average Indonesian’s evaluation of government performance simply reflect the fact that the international ratings are tracking one conception of democracy, while domestic survey agencies are tracking another.

During the reform era—roughly from 1998 right up to the early 2010s—liberal reformers sought to build a system of checks of balances and expand civil liberties.

Reformers sought to build vertical accountability through free and fair elections, while also institutionalising horizontal accountability by expanding the role of state institutions able to check the executive, such as the legislature (DPR) and the Constitutional Court.

For a time, enough members of the political elite shared this vision with liberal civil society.

But this conception of democracy as a system of checks and balances appears to have fallen by the wayside in Indonesia: civil society figures I have spoken to now characterise the DPR as “paralysed” (lumpuh), unable to provide a check-and-balance role with respect to the executive.

Instead another conception of democracy that has emerged to replace the reform-era vision is that of an electoral democracy with an instrumentalist and performative logic. In this conception of democracy, democracy’s success is measured not by the robustness of its checks and balances but by its ability to deliver on concrete policy outcomes.

Using data from the 2016 Asian Barometer survey, Eve Warburton and Edward Aspinall have showed that Indonesian survey respondents tend to associate democracy with good governance and socioeconomic outcomes. When asked to choose between democracy and economic development, only 7% of Indonesians said that democracy is more important.

This explains the disconnect between the democratic scores produced by international rating agencies and the surveys of public satisfaction with government performance produced by domestic survey agencies. As most Indonesians do not define democracy in liberal terms but in instrumentalist terms, they report increased satisfaction with government performance, especially due to the current administration’s track record in infrastructure development and its social welfare initiatives.

Elites in power are also coalescing around the second vision of democracy. Both Jokowi and Prabowo Subianto, the two presidential candidates in the 2014 and 2019 elections, have espoused the instrumental logic of democracy at different points. Jokowi has previously argued that politicians and political parties must show “proof” that democracy improves the people’s welfare. Similarly, in his speech to CSIS in August 2021, Prabowo highlighted that the crucial test for any political system or ideology is its ability to provide a better life for the people.

Two conceptions of democracy and their implications

What are the concrete implications of growing elite confidence in this instrumental conception of democracy for how Indonesian democracy functions?

One is a steady weakening of the horizontal accountability mechanisms introduced in the early reform era to limit executive power. This is most apparent in the relationship between the executive and the legislature in the past few years. As President Jokowi consolidated his legislative coalition from 2016 onwards, the relationship between the executive and the parliament has overwhelmingly shifted to coordination and cooperation. As explained by one parliamentarian I spoke to, checks and balances are important, but policy implementation is equally important as part of the government coalition.

Indeed, the key institutional feature that has been tweaked to favour cooperation between the two branches is the 2018 amendment to the Law on Legislative Institutions (UU MD3) which automatically appoints the party with the most seats in parliament as the speaker of the DPR. With PDI-P cadres occupying both the speakership and the presidency after the 2019 elections, this has facilitated the melding of the two branches in a way more akin to a parliamentary system of government. Due to the strong intra-elite accord and Jokowi’s successful coalition management, what civil society actors perceive as the parliament’s abdication of its check-and-balance role actually reflects the shift to an instrumental model whereby parliament delegates power to the executive for the sake of expedient governance. This approach has been embodied in the increased delegation of regulatory authority from the parliament to the central government with virtually no parliamentary oversight built in (for instance, in the design of the New Capital Authority).

At the same time, other reform era checking institutions have been allowed to weaken under this intra-elite compact. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was weakened in 2019 with the abolition of its independent status and the imposition of a supervisory board to give the executive branch more influence over its operations. The independence of the Constitutional Court has recently been called into question, as one of the justices on the Court was unceremoniously removed from office for annulling legislation supported by the DPR.

These developments in Indonesia might seem point to the emergence in Indonesia of what political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell called “delegative democracy”—a system of government that relies on competitive elections to select presidents but in which the winner has virtually unconstrained executive power. Indonesia is not a delegative democracy: the president does not have uncontested power, and the basic structure of the constitutional design put in place by liberal reformers remains in place. Furthermore, elite self-interest continues to constrain presidential power. Efforts by President Jokowi’s supporters to push through a third presidential term, for instance, have floundered due to strong opposition from other elites.

Democracy has nonetheless developed a strong instrumental logic in Indonesia, with elites safeguarding elections and presidential term limits not because of a belief in democratic principles, but because they are convenient rules of the game to structure elite competition and prevent potentially destabilising elite splits. The reform-era vision of Indonesian democracy has given way to an instrumental electoral democracy in which vertical accountability mechanisms—elections—remain robust but horizontal accountability mechanisms have atrophied.

For better or worse this instrumental version of democracy also offers a system of government that is probably more effective in delivering policy outcomes for the average Indonesian. By temporarily fusing executive and legislative power in a manner more akin to parliamentary regimes (though there is of course no guarantee that the Speaker of the DPR and the president will be from the same party after the 2024 elections) the central government can move faster and more effectively in its priority areas.

For now, this configuration has enabled the government to enact legislation and make progress on many of the urgent problems in the country, such as poverty alleviation, agrarian reform, job creation, and the building of new infrastructure. However, the current administration’s “move fast” economic model have also sometimes generated more economic inequality: witness, for instance, as nickel processing activities in North Maluku have yet to translate into concrete benefits for locals.

But is the shift away from a liberal-democratic model a good development for Indonesia? With weakened horizontal accountability mechanisms, Indonesia is a more brittle democracy that is reliant on future voters being able to pick a competent and well-intentioned president. There is very little that voters can do if a future president obtains the support of the political elite and decides to unilaterally exercise executive power in ways that conflict with popular preferences.

Conclusion: ‘kinerja’ politics?

The Jokowi administration has been a watershed in making policy performance and successes a key legitimising principle for democratic government in Indonesia. Instead of competing to show who are better democrats, candidates must compete to burnish their track records and demonstrate their ability to improve the lives of ordinary Indonesians.

Indonesia continues to be beset by pressing domestic economic challenges, including the question of how to secure good quality employment for the large youth population, improve the quality of education and healthcare, and address longstanding socioeconomic issues related to social mobility and poverty alleviation. Therefore, the candidate who is best able to demonstrate their effectiveness in terms of their track record, and best able to articulate a compelling economic agenda, is likely to have an edge.

Electoral competition based on policy outcomes is a positive development for Indonesian citizens. Once in power, the nature of Indonesia’s increasingly “parliamentary” system requires the president to shed their populist garb to make pragmatic political deals with the other elites, necessitating both accommodation and compromise. This could lead to further democratic erosion, but like what President Jokowi did this allows future presidents to focus on economic development programmes that benefit their voters.

It is why I believe that Indonesia is steadily moving towards a new political era—one of kinerja (performance) politics—that takes as its reference point not democratic reform, but democratic legitimacy based on competitive elections anchored in an instrumental and performative logic.

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