Ridwan Kamil Losing Steam in Jakarta Race.
The race for Jakarta Governor was supposed to be a lock for Ridwan Kamil, the charismatic former mayor of Bandung and Governor of West Java. However, the alliance of parties backing him appears to be coming apart and Kamil’s big lead has been cut back. Kamil has lost his early polling lead in the Jakarta gubernatorial race amid struggles to consolidate support from within his electoral alliance, while his biggest rival, Pramono Anung,PDI-P’s candidate has now clinched the top spot, albeit by a small margin, after seeing his popularity swell among various voter groups. Ridwan, a Golkar party politician, is contesting the race alongside running mate Suswono of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the biggest party in the Jakarta legislature. The pair is backed by political parties in the Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM) currently supporting President Prabowo Subianto’s administration. While Ridwan had been by far the most popular Jakarta candidate when all three candidate pairs registered their bids, a recent survey by the research unit of Kompas newspaper found that Pramono, who served as former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s two-term cabinet secretary, has now surpassed Ridwan. Kamil will reach out to his initial backers, Jokowi and Prabowo, for active support during the final weeks of the campaign. The election is on November 27th. Three tickets are contending, If none achieve 50% of the votes, a second round runoff takes place.
Tom Lembong Faces Charges
Former Trade Minister Tom Lembong was a key member of President Jokowi’s initial team in 2014 but eventually fell out of favor due to his global approach to trade at a time when others were moving to localize more production. Lembong took the view that once a foreign made product reached sufficient volume manufacturing would follow as it would be less expensive. He went on to lead the Investment Board (BKPM) for several years before returning to the private sector. He resurfaced this year to back Anies Baswedan candidacy for President. Lembong was arrested by the AGO late last month for alleged embezzlement that caused Rp 400 billion (US$25.38 million) in state losses from a sugar import project in 2015. The former minister reportedly authorized private company PT Angel Product (AP) to import 105,000 tonnes of raw sugar despite prevailing regulations stipulating that only state-owned enterprises (SOEs) could import the commodity and a ministerial coordination meeting concluding that there was already a surplus of raw sugar nationally. His legal advisory team is considering filing a pretrial motion challenging the Attorney General’s Office’s (AGO) decision to name him a graft suspect concerning a sugar import project he green-lighted nearly a decade ago. Thomas’ legal advisory team head Ari Yusuf Amir said in a media briefing on Monday that they found the AGO’s decision to arrest the ex-minister “confusing” and claimed that the legal allegations against him are “iffy”.
Lembong’s arrest and previous convictions of Pertamina CEO Karen Agustiawan call into question the issue of “state losses” and the criminalization of what could be a bad business decision or an unanticipated market shift.