(Jakarta Globe) Jokowi and Abbott Play the Popularity Game

12/12/2018

Relations between Indonesia and Australia have reached yet another low point — and not so much due to the former’s stubborn insistence on executing two Australian drug convicts, or the latter’s persistence in pleading for their clemency.

Rather, it seems both governments are using the situation surrounding Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to lift their plunging popularity at home.

In other words, we are afraid that the execution is a political ploy for both President Joko Widodo and Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and neither truly intend on saving Indonesia from the dangers of illicit drugs, or removing two Australian citizens from the gun scopes of a firing squad.

The incendiary way in which Joko announced his plans to execute drug traffickers provoked media outlets around the globe at a time when he was under pressure to act on a conflict between the police and Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Joko’s weak stance on the kerfuffle had stirred anger even among loyal supporters. His unyielding stance on the execution of Chan and Sukumaran — which more and more Indonesians now support — is his way of fanning nationalistic sentiments within the country.

Meanwhile, facing imminent risks of losing his job, Abbott made his own blunder by announcing that he expects Indonesia to pay back the $1 billion in aid Australia provided after the 2004 tsunami should the execution take place. The remarks only sparked anger among Indonesians, triggering coin-collecting campaigns to reimburse the amount.

We call on Joko and Abbott to stop using the execution as their own political bullet as it will not only damage bilateral ties between the two nations, but also hinder Indonesia’s fight against drugs and Australia’s battle to save its citizens.

Indonesian netizens made #KoinuntukAustralia (Coins for Australia) a trending topic on Sunday, a collective retort to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s call last week for “reciprocity” in exchange for its assistance to Indonesia after the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed 170,000 in Aceh alone, by granting clemency for Australian drug convicts Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry reacted strongly to Abbott’s statement, with ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir warning that “threats are not part of diplomatic language and no one responds well to threats.”

President Joko Widodo last week asserted that the government would proceed with the second round of executions, and that an announced delay was unrelated to Australia’s pressure.

“This is a matter of our legal sovereignty. The Australian government’s complaints will not have any effect whatsoever,” Joko told a press conference in Bogor, West Java, on Friday. “[The delay] is only due to technical issues.”

An opinion piece written by Jakarta-based writer Patrick Tibke and published by the Jakarta Globe last week harshly criticized Joko’s decision to reject clemency appeals by drug inmates on death row and called the president’s often-cited statistics for drug abuse and related deaths in Indonesia deeply erroneous.

Many believe the Joko administration’s preoccupation with drug-related executions following several months of bad press domestically is driven more by populism rather than principle.

“Indonesia’s alleged total number of drug users — 4.5 million — is a hugely speculative and unreliable figure, built around an arbitrary and flawed methodology,” Tibke said.

“In reality, the alleged total of 4.5 million drug users is merely a lazy projection based on an irrelevant set of estimates; a conjuring trick, as a magician would have it, and a deadly one at that!”

Joko, citing data from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and University of Indonesia, has said as the nation is now home to at least 4.5 million drug users, and that between 40 and 50 drug users die every day — which the president characterized as a “state of emergency.”

Flawed data does not dissuade University of Indonesia law professor Hikmahanto Juwana, however.

Hikmahanto accused Australia and other outsiders protesting Indonesia’s unusual use of capital punishment of “wicked maneuvers to taint the image of Indonesia.”

“Did the UN Secretary General cry foul when Ruyati was executed?” Hikmahanto said, referring to an Indonesian domestic worker who was beheaded in Saudi Arabia in 2011 for murdering her employer after allegedly suffering abuse.

“And what did [former Australian Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd say when the Bali bombing trio were executed by firing squad? ‘Justice has been done.’ So justice has been done when it concerns Indonesians but not when it concerns their citizens?”

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(Jakarta Globe) Jokowi and Abbott Play the Popularity Game