Dream a step closer to reality

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is pressing ahead with an ambitious plan to construct a new Indonesian capital in East Kalimantan, called Nusantara, making sure that the project moves forward before the end of his term.

On Sunday, three days after he swore in the head of the new capital city authority, Jokowi flew to East Kalimantan where he is expected to visit the construction site for the country’s new capital.

With monumental achievements in infrastructure and industrial development already behind him, Jokowi’s determination to forge ahead with his pandemic-delayed 466 trillion rupiah (RM137bil) capital relocation plan has underlined the value he attaches to making the project his crowning legacy.

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the country’s biggest nation-building project since its independence into disarray.

But after a year of delays, the project was set in motion when the House of Representatives passed legislation in January that lays down the legal framework for the new administrative centre.

Doubts that Jokowi can get the new capital city to a point of no return before his last term ends, however, persist amid political manoeuvrings at play over the past few weeks.

Some party leaders within the ruling coalition have floated ideas about delaying the 2024 general elections, which would effectively extend Jokowi’s final term in the nation’s highest office.

On Thursday, Jokowi named Bambang Susantono, a 58-year-old civil engineer-turned-economist specialising in transport and infrastructure, as the head of the new capital city authority.

Accompanying him is Dhony Rahajoe – the managing director of president office of Sinar Mas Land, a private developer – as his deputy.

The appointments are a step forward in the president’s ambitious plan to relocate the capital from the sinking Jakarta to East Kalimantan.

Both Bambang and Dhony will face tough challenges as Jokowi seeks to complete the first stage of the plan in 2024, the same year when the country will hold polls.

Political analyst Adi Prayitno said their appointments were a way to secure the project from unwanted political interest because Jokowi would want to imprint his legacy in a manner that no other Indonesian presidents have achieved before.

Moving the capital away from Jakarta is not a new idea.

Sukarno, the founding father of South-East Asia’s biggest economy, proposed moving the capital to Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan in 1957.

The plan also re-emerged during Soeharto’s reign, when the strongman named Jonggol in Bogor, West Java, as a potential site for a new capital. Jokowi’s predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, also spoke of relocating the capital in October 2010.

During Jokowi’s term in office, the idea was refloated again in 2017, but it never came to fruition until Jokowi decided to move the capital to an undecided location outside Java in 2019.

The project is meant to alleviate the excessive burden borne by Jakarta by shifting the headquarters of various government ministries and institutions, as well as diplomatic missions, to Nusantara.

Jokowi plans to have the State Palace and four ministries – foreign affairs, defence, home affairs and finance – working out of the new capital by 2024, as he wants to celebrate Indonesia’s 79th independence anniversary at his new office there.

“Having an independence day celebration there would at least serve as a symbol of a continuation of Jokowi’s success stories; that he had initiated the new capital,” economist Didin S. Damanhuri of Bogor Agricultural University said.

However, another hurdle to the progress could be a judicial review of the New Capital Law at the Constitutional Court.

The petitioners say the law-making process was carried out without sufficient public consultation.

Didin is among a group of academics and public figures who are challenging the law.

Didin does not think this is the right time to relocate the capital as Indonesia has a sizable level of debt and is yet to return its deficit to the non-emergency setting of less than 3% of gross domestic product (GDP).

“Relocating the capital from Jakarta is inevitable. We are not against it; but this is about priority. This is not the time to build a new capital. We already have a level of debt that has grown into a worrying level,” Didin said.

Political analyst Ahmad Khoirul Umam, who is not among the petitioners, said business calculations could possibly be one of the motives behind manoeuvres to delay the presidential election and extend Jokowi’s term.

“Delaying the elections could serve as a way to secure the business calculations of benefits and loss of the capital project,” Umam said. — The Jakarta Post/ANN