College News and Events

A series of social media personalities being put in plum posts sparked a debate on whether the administration of Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, was rewarding his supporters with plum posts despite not having relevant backgrounds. “Jokowi doesn’t have a really strong supporters base. He relied on public figures and volunteers during the election to gain supporters, and he knew that he was obliged to repay them somehow,” said Sulfikar Amir, associate professor at the School of Social Sciences at NTU in Singapore. “Jokowi then found himself trapped in [the] oligarchies’ agenda, that he thought were in line with his goals. He cannot critically assess this agenda, he now only focuses on increasing investments, and that brings us back to Suharto’s era. He is a little Suharto, in my opinion.”