Asian Angle | Indonesia has a lot in common with the Philippines – maybe too much, as Widodo and Prabowo take pages from Duterte’s playbook
- The Indonesian elections arguably resemble a battle between the different instincts that define the so-called Dutertismo ideology
- In each country, half of the population prefers a ‘strong leader’ who doesn’t have to bother with institutional checks and balances
In The Possessed (1872), Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky warned: “In turbulent times of upheaval or transition low characters always come to the front everywhere.”
His book, after all, was a reaction to the disruptive emergence of radical thinkers and nihilist movements, which sought to supplant a fossilised Tsarist regime in the dusk of the 19th century. The subsequent Russian Revolution, which precipitated decades of ideological violence and political fratricide, only underscored the prophetic nature of Dostoyevsky’s misgivings.
Today’s new and fledgling democracies such as Indonesia, which will soon head to the polls, are facing a similar moment of reckoning, as public confidence in democratic institutions frays and fractures.
Scratch the surface a bit, however, and one discovers Indonesia’s vulnerability to authoritarian temptations and its stubborn nostalgia for the days of dictatorship. No matter who wins in the upcoming presidential elections, the country faces major challenges to its new-found democratic institutions.
The curious case of Duterte poignantly provides a cautionary tale. First of all, one should take into account the eerie similarities between Indonesia and the Philippines.