Story highlights
Indonesian leader Joko Widodo has risen to power without ties to country's military or elite
AirAsia Flight QZ8501's crash was among the first crises Widodo has faced
Joko has taken tough stance on executions: "There will be no amnesty for drug dealers"
It would be easy not to pay Joko Widodo a second glance as he rides his bike down a Jakarta boulevard wearing track pants and white sneakers.
But fill that boulevard with thousands of Javanese out for the Sunday stroll, and you soon realize he is no ordinary Indonesian.
“Jokowi!” they shout – using the nickname by which the country’s new President is universally referred – reaching out to him for handshakes and selfies.
“Pagi!” – “Good morning!”
In October, he took office as President of this enormous Pacific archipelago of about 250 million people – the largest Muslim-majority country in the world.
“Indonesia is a big country. We have 17,000 islands, and it is not easy to manage that,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview Sunday, speaking a mixture of English and Bahasa Indonesia.
He has made the “blusukan” – an unannounced visit with the people – a trademark of his political brand.
“Blusukan is go to the people, go to the ground,” he told Amanpour as he walked his bike through crowds in central Jakarta.
“We check our program, we consult our program, and we must know the real situation (on) the ground.”
To the detriment of his bodyguards’ stress levels, he makes these visits at least once a week.
It is a rare sight for any world leader, let alone one who leads a country with a history of violent separatist movements.
His security team allows the President to be jostled by young and old elbowing in for a handshake.
Later at a slum that he’s transformed into new low-cost housing, an elderly woman walks right up to the President.
“She asked my number – telephone number!” he says.
“Things are getting a little too friendly,” says Amanpour with a smile.
Humble beginnings
Joko was raised in a down-and-out area of the central Java city of Surakarta, known as Solo. His father was a carpenter, and he followed in his footsteps, becoming a furniture exporter.
His rise to power was unusual – he has no history with the military or the elite, unlike the country’s former presidents. He rose to prominence through his extremely popular tenures as mayor of Solo and then governor of Jakarta.
His musical tastes, too, are unusual for a head of state. As heavy metal blared through his car’s speakers, Joko slapped his thigh in rhythm with the song and told Amanpour that some of his favorite bands include Led Zeppelin and Metallica.
Amanpour raised his upbringing as they stood overlooking the former slum.
“I know the situation; I know the condition,” he says. “Because when I was little, when I was a boy, I stayed (on) the riverbank in the slum area.”
In southeast Asia’s largest garment market, narrow hallways lined with stalls become impassable as seemingly everyone in the florescent-lit building pours in for a chance to see “Jokowi.”
He stops to buy 20 sarongs – for gifts in the office, he says – from a salesman, who struggles to contain his giddy excitement.
Indonesia has had trouble breaking into the global marketplace that has transformed many of its Asian neighbors like China.
“Indonesia is a big country. And I want my people (to be) prosperous,” he says. “It’s not easy, but I want it.”
His challenges are many. Indonesia’s gross domestic product growth has been slowing; shortly after Joko took office, the World Bank said the country’s growth rate was the lowest it had been for five years.
“I am sure that with fiscal changes that we have enacted, by (focusing) and dealing with infrastructure and providing opportunity for investment – whether local or foreign investments – I am sure that we will grow better this year between (5.6% to 5.8% growth).”
If conditions are right, within three years, he says GDP growth could be more than 7%.
“But we have to work hard,” he says.
Early success with cutting fuel subsidies
In his first 100 days, Joko did something his predecessors have tried and failed to enact: a cut in the enormous fuel subsidies the government offers. (For now, of course, he has been helped by plummeting global oil prices.)
In the late 1990s, protests over fuel prices kindled an uprising that led to the resignation of the dictator Suharto.
With the cut in fuel subsidies, the savings to government has been around 230 trillion rupiah (about $18 billion), Joko says, promising more for his infrastructure, health and education plans.
His vision is to curtail the use of government money to promote consumption of fossil fuels and instead use funds to bolster the country’s desperately lacking health and education systems, and infrastructure.
“To build our infrastructure; to improve the irrigation for the farmer, seed and fertilizer to the farmer; and then we give (good boat engines) to the fishermen, we give refrigerators to the fishermen; and we give working capital to small (enterprises) in the villages.”
“So from the consumption to the production. From the consumptive activities to the productive activities.”
AirAsia disaster his first big challenge
Two months after taking office, AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashed in Indonesian waters with 162 people on board.
“I don’t know” why the plane went down, the President told Amanpour.
“It can be because of the weather, it can be because of other reasons. We are not sure about that now. But the most important thing is that the operation was conducted quickly, and we are continuing” the removal of bodies from the ocean floor.
A preliminary report is due out this week. Last week, the country’s transportation minister said the plane had climbed rapidly and stalled before it crashed into the sea.
AirAsia is a Malaysian carrier, but Indonesia has long had a troubled airline industry and regulatory system.
So dangerous is the country’s industry that only five Indonesia airlines are permitted to fly within the European Union – more than 60 others are banned, as of November.