Lunch Lecture - Dirk Tomsa: Presidential Government and Party System Fragmentation in Indonesia

After winning the 2014 election, Indonesia’s new president Joko Widodo pledged to pursue a different approach to cabinet formation and coalition-building than his predecessors. In a major break from established practices, Jokowi, as he is widely known, refused to offer concessions to parties who were willing to support his government. On the other end of the spectrum, however, surprisingly few parties that had opposed him in the presidential election, actually indicated that they were even willing to switch sides. This left Jokowi with the unusual prospect of facing a parliament dominated by a coalition of opposition parties. These developments seemed to challenge prominent explanatory approaches to Indonesian politics which have identified broad rainbow coalitions and promiscuous powersharing as defining features of how presidentialism and multi-partyism co-exist in Indonesia. The polarization, however, was short-lived and it was not long before Jokowi found himself fighting his own party more than the so-called opposition. Against this background, this presentation will analyse Jokowi’s position in this complex power struggle and examine how the nature of Indonesian party politics is constraining the president’s ability to govern effectively.

Programm FRIAS Lunch Lectures, Sommersemester 2015