Three years of terms of office of President Joko Widodo and Vice-President Jusuf Kalla were seen as giving much change through accelerated infrastructure development. In terms of economy, Jokowi is seen as having sustained economic growth to be above 5%. These are however not yet optimum because their success was only made in the third year while the two first year they had done more on political and cabinet consolidation. Both are expected to optimise their last two years in office.
This emerged in a Talkshow themed Three Years of Terms of Office of 'Jokowi –JK' in the auditorium of MM UGM on Wednesday (20/12). It was organised by Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UGM, Presidential Staff Office and UNDP, presenting speakers such as Regent of Kulonprogo, Hasto Wardoyo, political observer from UMY, Prof. Achmad Nurmandi, Economist from UGM, Dr. Rimawan Pradiptyo, and Editor-in-Chief of Kedaulatan Rakyat, Octo Lampito.
Hasto Wardoyo said the impromptu visit by President ‘Jokowi’ to regions had been imitated by regional leaders, despite just for image building by the regional leaders. Even so, such visit gave positive impacts to regional governments.
Hasto said although the regional leaders now often made such impromptu visits, but they have not followed the stance of President Joko Widodo that always prioritises honesty and anti-corruption behaviours. “Being honest, not committing corruption, nepotism, and collusion have not been practised (by the regional leaders),” he said.
According to Hasto, the anti-corruption stance had to be one of targets of the mental revolution launched by the President. “Apart from the grassroot level, public officials also need to do mental revolution,” he added.
Ahmad Nurmandi assessed that in the first two years of governance, ‘Jokowi and JK’ had done more of political consolidation. ”The first two years was a political consolidation. They started to work in peace in the third year, so it leaves just two years more,” he said.
According to Nurmandi, one of the problems facing the government was the not solid cooperation among the cabinet ministers because they came from political parties, hence prioritising the interest of their group. “The challenge for the cabinet in the future is to ensure a cooperation and this is an important matter to be resolved by ‘Jokowi-JK’,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rimawan Pradiptyo said one of the tasks to be done by the President was to try to provide single identity number like those in developed countries. With this mechanism, the government will be able to monitor each of its policy whether it benefits the society. “Single identity number is different from e-KTP (ID card), and this is what makes us different from those that have it,” he said.