The central government cannot manage every aspect of government from Jakarta. The closer government is to citizens, the better positioned it is to understand and respond to their everyday needs. Local governments know better than Jakarta whether a particular village needs better roads, clean water, waste management, schools, health services, or other forms of basic infrastructure.

There is no question that the military, especially the army, is expanding fast, building hundreds of battalions across Indonesia and recruiting tens of thousands. What is less obvious is the major role that complicit local media have played in justifying this remilitarisation project.  

In this week's episode, Tito Ambyo chats with Imam Ardhianto, Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Universitas Indonesia, about the changing human-tiger relations in Sumatra.

The question is not whether the government understands the importance of peat restoration as a key measure to prevent fires. It does. The question is whether it is investing enough — and maintaining what it has already built — to make restoration work.

Indonesia’s decision to conduct military exercises with China therefore shows political insensitivity that may create an unnecessary provocation in the region. It also raises even more fundamental questions about Indonesia’s foreign policy under President Prabowo Subianto.

In a true rule of law system, checks and balances ensure that no single institution exercises power without restraint. Instead, institutions are expected to monitor, limit and correct one another to prevent abuses of authority. By contrast, under Indonesia’s legal and political system, state institutions are discouraged from interfering with one another’s functions to avoid conflict, embarrassment or public controversy.

Last month, a series of attacks on transgender women in Bogor sent a chill through a community for whom this kind of violence is increasingly normal. The recent attacks have coincided with the release of the full text of Presidential Regulation No. 111 of 2025 concerning the 2025-2029 General Policy for National Defence, classifying the spread of LGBTQI+ culture as a ‘non-military’ threat to the state. In this week's episode, Jemma Purdey chats with Dania Joedo, a musician and human rights activist, about the renewed anti-LGBTQI+ sentiment in Indonesia.

The real question here is not merely whether the next governor possesses technical credentials. It is whether the process results in the appointment of a governor able and willing to defend the rupiah, when doing so requires higher interest rates, tighter liquidity or resistance to government financing, and whether that governor can do so without jeopardising his or her tenure.