Indonesian presidential candidate Anies Baswedan pushes for vague policies in energy and foreign affairs

Anies Baswedan, a former Jakarta governor, is campaigning in Indonesia’s upcoming presidential election, positioning himself as an alternative to his two rivals who are likely to embrace most of incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s policies if elected.

Still, during the campaign, Anies Baswedan has come up with some odd ideas, bringing ideology into energy or foreign affairs, where figures and specific laws are unassailable and unquestionable.

The presidential election will determine who gets to lead Indonesia for the next five years, and a question flagged by many political and business watchers is whether the new leader will continue or undo the course set by Jokowi, who is barred by Indonesia’s Constitution from running for a third term.

Simultaneous presidential and legislative elections are scheduled on Feb 14. Opinion surveys show Anies trails well behind frontrunner Prabowo Subianto, an ex-special forces commander, but is neck-and-neck with a third candidate, Ganjar Pranowo. If no candidate wins a majority, a runoff featuring the top two will be held in June.

Indonesia has pledged to cut its emissions

Under Jokowi, Indonesia has pledged to cut its emissions by nearly 32% on its own, or by 43.2% with international support by 2030. These targets, announced in 2022, are slightly higher than its earlier Paris Agreement pledge.

Indonesia has also pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060 or earlier, which means it will absorb as much carbon as it emits. It plans to do so by retiring all its coal-fired power plants by 2050 and deploying more clean energy sources like solar farms and wind turbines.

The country – Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the world’s largest coal exporter – currently derives 57% of its energy from coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel. Indonesia’s energy sector emitted 600 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide in 2021.

How Jokowi’s successor continues to steer Indonesia’s energy transition will have a far-reaching impact. All three presidential candidates have announced net-zero targets.

Anies and his vice-presidential running mate Muhaimin Iskandar have promised to balance economic development and environmental protection, by bringing “climate justice”, which would mean protecting vulnerable but underdeveloped communities against the impacts of climate change.

Climate activists say that they have provided no further details on turning this idea into actionable policies, according to a report by Channel News Asia.

The Anies – Iskandar team plans to closely monitor the carbon emitted by factories, smelters and power plants. They have pledged to retire coal power plants, especially those in Java and Bali, early.

Although they promised to increase renewables’ share in Indonesia’s energy mix, they have not specified a target. According to the International Energy Agency, Indonesia’s current goal is for renewables to make up 23% of its electricity mix by 2025, up from 14% in 2021.

More taxes

An earlier interview by a member of their team gives a hint about the method to pursue such policies: more taxes.

In November, Wijayanto Samirin, Mr. Anies’s lead economist, told Reuters that the plan is to set up an endowment fund using revenue from a planned carbon tax to finance renewable energy development if he wins the elections.

Anies will levy a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emitted by polluting industries and place the revenue on what he will call the Resource Endowment Fund. With a 10 trillion rupiah ($645.6 million) seed capital from the state budget, the fund is expected to finance geothermal exploration and renewables research, he said.

“The endowment fund is to guarantee that the money will really be allocated on efforts to cut carbon emissions. It will not go into the government’s pocket and be used for other purposes,” Wijayanto said.

Mr. Widodo passed a law in 2021 to serve as a legal basis for his government to impose a carbon tax, but the levy has been delayed indefinitely to protect economic growth.

Sitting on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia has around 24 gigawatts of geothermal potential, the world’s second-largest, but has only utilised around 10% of this, according to state energy company Pertamina.

Geothermal exploration is expensive and risky, deterring investment, said Wijayanto. If the government could compile reliable data on proven reserves, it would reduce investment risks.

Anies says he aims to increase the proportion of renewables in Indonesia’s energy mix to 22%-25% by 2029. Over half of Indonesia’s electricity is currently powered by coal.

A dangerous step

Anies is also taking a different stance from other candidates on the country’s capital relocation project. If elected, he wants to reassess the feasibility of Indonesia’s future capital, Nusantara.

The Jokowi administration plans to shift its capital from Jakarta to Nusantara, a new city being built in the East Kalimantan province of Borneo island. This will occur in August, before the next administration is installed in October.

Jun Honna, a professor at Japan’s Ritsumeikan University and an expert in Indonesian politics, said that the Jokowi administration has launched various development policies, including the capital relocation plan, and that a change of direction might come, depending on who wins the elections. “The most important point of contention is whether [the next president] will continue the various agendas and economic policies that the Jokowi administration has established over the past decade or modify them,” Honna told Nikkei Asia.

Anies also questions Indonesia’s global presence under the Jokowi government.

The main questions about Indonesia’s future foreign policy are whether the next president will continue or change the country’s relations with China, the US, and its neighbours, according to an op-ed by Hangga Fathana, a scholar with Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) Yogyakarta, published by The New Indian Express.

The three presidential candidates have said they will maintain Indonesia’s “free and active” foreign policy tradition, but are there areas where they differ. When presenting his foreign policy platform, Anies criticised the government’s current approach, calling it “excessively pragmatic and transactional.”

Thus, he hinted at the current administration’s policy of not attending prestigious international forums while focusing more on economic diplomacy and improving bilateral relationships with countries that bring more economic benefits to Indonesia. Instead, Anies promises to “globalise” Indonesia by taking more leadership roles in addressing global issues. His foreign policy would focus on elevating Indonesia’s role and participation in international affairs and the global order.

The fear is that abandoning pragmatic foreign policy might in fact mean switching to ideology, a dangerous step from someone who drew support from hardline Islamists during his first campaign for governor and who is now backed by a firebrand cleric who was once the spiritual leader of an extremist group behind the 2002 Bali bombings, the country’s deadliest terrorist attack.