Skip to footer

Guessing game over: Jakarta governor to run for president

Joko Widodo runs Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, and has long kept admirers wondering if he'd stand in July. His appeal to ordinary voters may have swayed the political gatekeepers.

|
Enny Nuraheni/Reuters/File
Jakarta's Governor Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, is greeted by residents during his visit to inspect the aftermath of a slum fire area in west Jakarta, Indonesia, April 9, 2013.
  • By Associated Press

| JAKARTA, Indonesia

The political party of former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri nominated the capital's popular governor as its presidential candidate on Friday, a move aimed at bolstering the party's prospects in upcoming legislative elections.

Since being elected governor of Jakarta in 2012, Joko Widodo, known as "Jokowi," has topped polls as the most electable candidate to replace President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who cannot run for re-election because he is already in his second term.

Widodo's growing popularity is driven by moves aimed at shoring up support among the poor and a clean track record. By naming him Friday as a candidate for the July 9 presidential election, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle chairwoman Megawati will likely secure a significant number of votes for the party in next month's legislative polls.

"I'm ready to carry out the mandate," Widodo told cheering supporters at a low-cost apartment complex in Jakarta.

Indonesia, home to more than 240 million people, is the world's third-largest democracy after India and the United States.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Guessing game over: Jakarta governor to run for president
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0314/Guessing-game-over-Jakarta-governor-to-run-for-president
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe