Indonesia election 2024: can attacking Jokowi's legacy Nusantara project help Anies Baswedan in the polls?

Outgoing Indonesian President Joko Widodo's biggest legacy project is the construction of a new capital, Nusantara, meant to replace the congested, sinking city of Jakarta as the country's seat of government.

But Widodo's grand vision for the new capital may be sunk if Anies Baswedan, one of three candidates vying to be his successor in February's presidential election, is able to take his outspoken criticism of Nusantara and turn it into a game-changing campaign strategy.

If things go according to Widodo's plan, the US$32 billion project will transform 2,560 sq km (988 sq miles) of land nestled among the rainforests of East Kalimantan into Indonesia's political centre by the end of 2024.

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But Anies, who is a former governor of Jakarta, took direct aim at Nusantara and Widodo's legacy on Sunday, arguing the project could exacerbate Indonesia's already deep inequalities.

"What's needed in Indonesia today is equitable growth, where development is carried out not just in one location, but in many locations. Don't let us build only in one location, which will actually create new inequality," he said.

"We are preparing a programme structure to be able to encourage villages to further develop, for small towns to become medium, and medium ones to become large throughout Indonesia," Anies added.

This is not the first time that Anies, trailing behind in third place in recent polls, has criticised Nusantara, but the remark was one of his sharpest attacks yet against the highly popular outgoing president.

Since the official campaign period began late last month, Anies and his coalition members have become increasingly vocal in their criticisms as they seek to sap support from leading presidential contender Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is Widodo's son. The pair have been all but officially endorsed by the president and are widely seen as a continuation of his administration.

Ahmad Syaikhu, president of the Prosperous Justice Party that belongs to Anies' coalition, also told the media on Sunday if Anies were to win next year's election, plans to move the capital from Jakarta would be cancelled.

Analysts say Nusantara is likely to be an increasingly controversial issue in the run-up to February's vote.

"Nusantara has been sort of a centrepiece project for the Jokowi administration," said Ian Wilson, a senior lecturer who specialises in Indonesian politics at Murdoch University in Perth, referring to the president by his nickname.

"I don't think Nusantara per se is of huge importance to Indonesians, but it does touch on other issues like the allocation of state resources," he added. "It is a huge drain on the public purse in Indonesia, and there's a solid argument that these resources should be used on public infrastructures like health."

Survey results over the past year have shown mixed results in terms of public support for Nusantara. In July, a poll by Indostrategic showed only 40.1 per cent of respondents agreed with moving the capital city. Of the 57.3 who disagreed, the main reason was that the money for the project could go to more pressing developmental issues in Indonesia.

Another survey released in October by Indikator Politik showed 56.2 per cent of people supported the plan.

"Only borderline 50 per cent of the population, and in some surveys lower than that number, show support for the idea, but a greater proportion of people seem sceptical as to the capacity of the government to pull it off." Wilson said.

Nusantara is therefore a controversial enough issue for Anies to campaign on, observers say, since his criticisms could resonate with large segments of the population.

In Nusantara, Anies may have found another divisive issue to centre his campaign around.

"I think when cost-of-living pressures and a whole heap of other issues are impacting Indonesians' everyday lives, to see this amount of money being spent on [Nusantara] is something that political opponents could capture," Wilson said.

However, even if Anies won, it is unclear if he could completely pull the plug on Nusantara, as Widodo has already put some guarantees in place to future-proof his flagship project after his departure. The National Capital City Law, passed by parliament in January 2022, makes it mandatory for the next president to see the development of the project through.

Still, D. Nicky Fahrizal, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta, said there were ways that the law could still be revised by another leader, such as by gaining a majority of seats in parliament and issuing an emergency regulation, known as a Perppu, to overrule it.

Following the recent criticisms, Widodo defended the Nusantara project in a social media post on Wednesday. "Why are we building the [it]? We want to create economic equality, equal population distribution, and foster new economic growth points. We want Indonesia-centric development, where there is also economic growth on other islands," he wrote.

According to Widodo, part of the impetus for Nusantara is to expand economic development to different parts of Indonesia's vast archipelago beyond the densely populated island of Java.

But some people see Nusantara as a way to "abandon Jakarta to its fate" as it sinks due to excessive groundwater extraction, Wilson said.

Analysts warn that failing to complete the Nusantara project could deal a significant blow to Widodo's legacy. It is a real possibility, even without the threat of a successor undoing his plans, as funding for the project has already become a critical concern.

"One significant reason why [Nusantara] has not secured a definite investor lies in the perception that the plan to relocate the capital is hasty," Nicky from CSIS said.

Given the challenges facing Nusantara and those Anies faces in the polls, it seems likely that he will continue to press on with his criticism of the project in hopes of turning the tide against Prabowo. Only time will tell if such a strategy works in his favour.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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