published @ The Jakarta Post
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has been yearning for a national car since he served as mayor of Surakarta, more commonly known as Solo. Back then, he promoted Solo’s vocational-student made car, the Kiat Esemka. This idea made headlines again during his recent visit to Malaysia. In a bid to develop its own national car, an obscure Indonesian car company led by the President’s party clique will cooperate with the Malaysian government-backed Proton.
Proton is the brainchild of Malaysia’s most revered leader, Mahathir Mohamad. Unlike Indonesia, which has let foreign-brand cars rule the roost in the domestic market without any concession, Malaysia applied a different strategy. Since his early years in power, Mahathir has been determined that Malaysians would master automobile technology and produce their own national brand.
Purportedly, in exchange for participation in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Sarawak, Japan’s Mitsubishi had to transfer its automobile technology to support Malaysia’s car brand, Proton. So, in 1985 the first Malaysian national car, the Proton Saga, was launched bearing a strong resemblance to the Mitsubishi Lancer. Even if this was, in fact, a Japanese-made car, Malaysians dominated the management team and Malaysia has its own brand to be proud of.
The most stirring lessons learned from Proton is that the Malaysian government’s role was key to growing the automobile company. And rather than reinventing the wheel or getting technology transferred, Proton obtained its technology from Mitsubishi and Lotus through shrewd negotiation of exchanging natural resources with high technology and acquisition.
This brings us back to the plan of reviving Indonesia’s national car.
In my opinion, Indonesia should emulate Malaysia’s strategy. But it is of no value that this must be done through cooperating with Proton. Inviting Proton is the same as inviting Toyota, Honda, Suzuki etc.
Proton will be another foreign-brand car benefitting from Indonesia’s market, but this time it will be backed by Indonesia’s government.
It’s also detrimental to the hoped-for national brand.
Better yet, Indonesia could build its national car on its own. Bear in mind that in 1993 the son of then president Soeharto established a national car company, Timor. Back then, Timor was exactly the Indonesian version of Proton. Timor had nothing but the management team and the brand. The car was equipped with machinery from South Korea’s Kia. Later, the company vanished following the fall of Soeharto.
Once there is hype surrounding the Kiat Esemka, contributed to by President Jokowi, the government must back, inject funds and grow this domestically made car. Once a national car has been produced, the Indonesian government must support it by giving it a leg up in both the domestic and export markets and ensure its survival.
Delving into history, this strategy has been applied stretching back to the founding of Toyota in 1933. In 1939, Japan kicked out America’s General Motors and Ford from Japan’s market to foster domestic car manufacturers. But Toyota still faced heady years. In 1949, the struggling Toyota was bailed out by the Bank of Japan. And the rest is history.
Finally, hats off to Malaysia’s strategy in raising Proton, however, developing an Indonesian national car with Proton has neither rhyme nor reason.
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published @ The Jakarta Post
To some extent Indonesia’s democracy makes us proud. Along with the Filipinos, the Indonesians enjoy more political freedom than their ASEAN peers. In Thailand, for example, the army has launched many coups d’état.
The quasi-democracies in Malaysia and Singapore render the ruling parties too strong and no democracy exists in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos or Brunei.
There’s a sizeable middle class in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. And thanks to good governance, their economies fare well, too. But in terms of the government, change through election and the power of the middle class shaping the country, their democracies are still inchoate.
The middle class is free, rational, financially independent and politically aware. The middle class is the backbone of democracy. The government elected is the reflection of the middle class’ interests and aspirations. The middle class keenly gets involved in politics (through voting in general elections) because the results will have a direct impact on their welfare. Accordingly, the politicians must curry favor from them to gain support.
Indonesia’s middle class exists, grows and has a say. The public opinions are, in part, cultivated and formed through social media, the middle class’ ultimate weapon. Current national issues are openly discussed through “posting”, “twitwar” and widely spread through “like”, “retweet” or “hashtag”. This power has been applied well and has forced lawmakers to align with public demand. The reinstatement of direct elections for regional heads is a case in point.
The last presidential election also showed how rational our voters are, arguably led by the middle class. The voters were given two choices: mighty Prabowo Subianto or humble Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. Prabowo offered the grandeur of Indonesia, which was so abstract; Jokowi simply brought in examples of how to fix Indonesians’ problems, such as citizen administration, business and investment licensing administration, health care, education, etc. Finally, Indonesians voted for Jokowi.
But the middle class doesn’t stop in the wake of an election. After taking office, Jokowi is not necessarily given a blank check. The recent brouhaha shows the well-functioning middle class. President Jokowi has made a lousy decision — proposing a graft suspect to be National Police chief. He, of course, goes to the devil. The incandescent middle class votes with their feet and dog-piles the protests against their beloved President Jokowi.
For a long time Indonesia has been crippled by corruption. Many law enforcement institutions have also been entangled by this epidemic. Somehow, President Jokowi lost touch with this long-standing reality. The corruptors and friends have been trying to flip our logic upside-down. They move swiftly and shrewdly, benefitting the weakness of institutions and the legal system. And this time, again, Indonesia needs the middle class to utter the guile and spread it.
We pin our high hopes for a better Indonesia on Jokowi, but Jokowi’s underperformance on corruption eradication takes the edge off our hope. It nullifies his achievements and our admiration. And the lesson learned is that Indonesia hardly relies on a Superman-like president to put everything right. This makes the role of the middle class in politics desperately needed and indispensable. In short, the middle class matters to safeguard Indonesia’s democracy and common sense.
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