Competing visions

IT IS impressive progress. Less than two decades ago Indonesia was a dictatorship under the late Suharto; on July 9th voters in this island archipelago of 240m will go enthusiastically to the polls to choose a new president. Turnout promises to be high. The election campaign has been free of violence. And, although religion is never entirely absent from Islam’s foremost democracy, this has been a contest fought overwhelmingly over secular issues.

Yet the country’s democracy is still young. This will be the first time that one popularly elected leader—Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who must step down after two (lacklustre) terms as president—will hand over power to another. And the election is even more significant because one of the two presidential contenders is unlike any leader Indonesia has had.

Joko Widodo (pictured, left), who is universally known as Jokowi, started out as a humble furniture seller and became a pragmatic, uncorrupt mayor. He is not from the usual clutch of political and business dynasties and their sleazy cronies. Until recently Jokowi appeared to have an unassailable lead. But now the establishment’s candidate, Prabowo Subianto (pictured, right), is fighting back. A former general (like Mr Yudhoyono), he has money, a slick campaign and a muscular image. Both Jokowi and Mr Prabowo offer themselves as an improvement on the dithering Mr Yudhoyono; but, in this newspaper’s view, real change will come only with Jokowi.

Indonesia at a crossroads—really

He represents something new for Indonesia. The 53-year-old is the first of a political generation reaching the national stage since popular protests in the late 1990s toppled Suharto. Jokowi’s rise would have been inconceivable without the radical political decentralisation which is perhaps the outstanding success of Indonesia’s democratic journey. He began his political career as mayor of Solo, a medium-sized city in Java, the most populous island, before becoming an immensely popular governor of Jakarta, the capital, in 2012. It is there that he forged a reputation for can-do competence and clean government that won the admiration of many and propelled him into the presidential race.

Jokowi has a good record of dealing with the concerns of ordinary Indonesians: clogged traffic, poor sanitation and pettifogging, bribe-taking bureaucrats. He is also more comfortable working with Christians or ethnic Chinese than most politicians are. Indeed, his opponents have tried to turn his hostility to religious intolerance against him by claiming that he is in fact a Christian. And, though no room exists on the Indonesian political spectrum for anything like economic liberalism, he is less of an economic nationalist than his opponent; foreign investors would cheer a Jokowi victory. He understands the need to cut ruinous fuel subsidies and to boost education.

The concern about Jokowi is that he might be out of his depth in high politics. That is partly because he lacks experience: his views on foreign policy are still barely known. But his campaign has been worryingly amateurish, relying mainly on the assumption that honesty and an impressive record are enough (see article). An endearing trait—his humility—has turned into a liability. And his image as an outsider is compromised by his reliance on his party’s grande dame, Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of modern Indonesia’s founder and a former president herself. She has appeared on occasion to be grudging in her support for Jokowi.

Mr Prabowo has seized his chance, making the race too close to call. His rallies are far livelier than those of the uncharismatic Jokowi. But the man who was once Suharto’s son-in-law is a throwback to a darker past. As a former commander of Indonesia’s notorious special forces, Mr Prabowo has a tainted record on human rights, first in East Timor and then during the anti-Suharto protests. He is a master of money politics and has benefited from having friends who own television stations and newspapers. He bashes foreign investors. And he appears to want to turn back the clock on Indonesia’s democratisation.

Whether Mr Prabowo would succeed in that is another matter, but he should not be allowed to try. Voting Mr Jokowi is a gamble: perhaps in government he would be overwhelmed by the big political bruisers. But he ran the country’s biggest city well, and his vision of the future is preferable by far to Mr Prabowo’s version of the past. In The Economist’s view Jokowi is the right choice for Indonesia.