I am happy to see the Indonesian Constitutional Court validate the Presidential election victory of Joko Widodo yesterday ( shown here voting with his wife ). Jokowis victory has a lot of parallels with the situation at hand in Pakistan. He had campaigned for building a New Indonesia that was free of corruption and exploitation. Every time I have gone to Indonesia to lecture, the first complaint I hear from my hosts is the degree of pervasive corruption in the economy. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world but I remember there was a time when people there used to look up to Pakistan because Pakistan was on a higher growth path and seemed more stable. Jokowi was born poor, son of a wood collector, whose family used to live in shacks on the flood prone banks of a river. He graduated from a forestry school and worked in his uncles furniture store where he learned that business and managed to start his own furniture business. He won the mayoral election in Jakarta and ran for Presidency from the experience of Jakarta Governorship. I believed him in Jakarta when he said, I know what it is like being poor...I hate protocol. I dont want protocol to manage me. I dont want it to be difficult for the people to reach me... This is an era of horizontal leadership; this is the new democracy in Indonesia. Jokowi is no maulvi, in fact he loves loud music, but he always offers his prayers on time no matter where he is. As shown in the attached photo, he also leads the prayer. Pakistani rulers are spending five billion rupees, most of it on credit with loans at high interest rates to be paid by future governments, on their personal security and protocol. This must end whether they survive the present protests or not. Let Jokowis example be a standard for the New Pakistan. DrMuhammad M Awan 8/24/14
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 01:56:10 +0000
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