Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – News about the new national capital (IKN) of the archipelago continues to attract interest from foreign media. One of which is TIME.
In his report with the title “Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo Once Symbolized Democratic Hope-His Plan for a New Capital Represents a Darker Legacy”, a number of criticisms emerged again at IKN. Several things were highlighted.
Quoted on Friday (3/11/2023), TIME earlier this week wrote how the project to move Indonesia’s capital from Java Island to Kalimantan Island had drawn a lot of skepticism and criticism. Starting from inadequate public consultation, land disputes with indigenous communities, to concerns about Chinese investment which critics say is making the archipelago the “New Beijing”.
TIME wrote that initially a number of concerns that Jakarta could no longer be inhabited were the reason a new capital city was a necessity. Starting from traffic jams, pollution, contamination, including the issue that it will sink by 2050.
“But a more dangerous implication that observers warn of is the undemocratic nature of the new capital, which is located hundreds of miles away from Jakarta and will operate without elected regional leaders, which will be particularly pronounced in a country that is currently the world’s third-largest democracy. ” he explained.
Several sources were taken in this article. One of them, Ian Wilson, is a senior lecturer specializing in Indonesian politics at Australia’s Murdoch University.
“This truly reflects an escape plan from the failure of successive governments in Jakarta in handling and managing Jakarta’s problems,” he said TIME quote it.
“Jakarta’s problems will remain, like anything in the archipelago,” he added.
“I think it would be disingenuous to say that Nusantara will help solve Jakarta’s problems. This will only solve the problem to the extent that politicians no longer feel an obligation to deal with them or even talk to them.”
The media also then mentioned Myanmar’s administrative capital, which is known to be remote and was inaugurated in 2005 by the military regime, Naypyidaw. The new city was said to “serve to protect the country’s military leaders from rebellion”.
TIME also wrote how Egypt created a new administrative capital, which is led by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and has been under construction since 2015. The media said “this is designed to benefit the military and the military-aligned government, in part by reducing the importance of military interests , a traditional protest site in Cairo”.
“(This) new capital was built as a pet project of a particular government, but it also involved a process of separating the government from wider civil society,” Wilson said again.
Comments from a sociology professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore were also published on the same page, Sulfikar Amir. He said Nusantara, as currently designed, “will only have renters and users, not citizens”.
“When you have an authority running a city that is disconnected from everyone who lives in that city, the idea of a citizen makes no sense,” TIME wrote.
“It doesn’t really represent the democratic system that should be the basis of city governance throughout the country… But the central government will believe that this is a perfect system and should be implemented in all cities in Indonesia,” he added.
However, TIME still praised Jokowi. Where the President’s focus on economic growth has achieved results.
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