Opinion: Indonesia’s politicisation of the virus is stopping effective response

Covid-19 is perhaps the most politicised virus in human history, and in Indonesia it's no different. Political analyst Yohanes Sulaiman explains how President Jokowi's economic aspirations, combined with opposition scheming, have resulted in a weak response to the crisis

While it is still too early to say whether Indonesia will emerge unscathed from the COVID 19 Pandemic, future historians will perhaps look at Indonesia as a case study on how politics, personal rivalries, and social media, dominated by partisan buzzers cause havoc in Indonesian health crisis management.
Since January 2020, there were worries whether Indonesia was ready should an outbreak of COVID 19 happen. And more importantly, the administration is painfully aware of the high economic cost of lock down, not to mention the fact that the poor would be the ones to suffer the most, with Jokowi pointing to the chaos in India and Italy as a result of their own lockdowns.
The second factor is the composition of Jokowi’s own cabinet that is business oriented, filled with politicians, entrepreneurs, and former military personnel. Minister of Health Terawan Agus Putranto himself was a retired general with the dubious distinction of being sanctioned by the Indonesian Doctors Association , with the IDI even asking Jokowi not to appoint Terawan as health minister. At the same time, they saw Anies Baswedan’s efforts to tackle the virus as a way to boost his chance for reelection in 2022 and running for president in 2024 by undermining the public’s trust towards Jokowi. Not surprisingly, the Jokowi administration and its supporters didn’t look at this kindly and sought to undermine Anies Baswedan.

This article was written by Yohanes Sulaiman

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