JAKARTA – University student Angela Irene lavishly praised outgoing Indonesian President Joko Widodo for boosting public transport, and said she cried when he announced that he was stepping down.

“He’s been the best president of Indonesia in recent memory,” she told The Straits Times.

But in the next breath, the 21-year-old called him “too greedy” for trying to push his children into politics to build up a dynasty.

Mr Widodo, widely known by his moniker Jokowi, built highways, the mass rapid transit (MRT) system and South-east Asia’s first high-speed rail (HSR), but has also been panned for weakening democracy in his second five-year term in power.

“There was a lot of emphasis on improving public transport under Jokowi’s administration, and even for myself, I was confident enough to actually use public transport only when Jokowi took the helm,” said Ms Angela, who majors in international relations at Bina Nusantara University.

On the flip side, she said: “I think it’s a bit much that there’s been a lot of support to prop his children up when they may not necessarily be the most capable, simply because of their names.”

Days before he was elected Indonesia’s seventh president on July 9, 2014, Mr Widodo told tens of thousands of supporters at his final rally that he had no desire for power.

On the stadium podium, in his signature blue-and-red chequered shirt with sleeves rolled up, he promised to uphold democracy and lead with integrity.

The crowd cheered, hopeful that a leader from outside the military, political elite and wealthy circles would bring about positive change.

A decade has since passed. Now 63, the slim, mild-mannered man will step down on Oct 20 after two five-year terms. He will be succeeded by Mr Prabowo Subianto, a former military general whom he defeated twice in presidential elections and appointed in 2019 as his defence minister.

Mr Widodo’s exit has stirred up as much din as the jubilation that marked his rise to power.

In late August 2024, violent nationwide protests erupted over a controversial parliamentary plan to lower the minimum age of candidates for the November regional election – potentially allowing Mr Widodo’s younger son Kaesang Pangarep to run. The protesters were met with tear gas and a water cannon.

The proposal did not sit well with voters, who had dealt with a similar age rule change by the Constitutional Court in 2023 that allowed Mr Widodo’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka to become Indonesia’s next vice-president.

The plan was eventually scrapped, but online criticism persisted. This was not the reformist man-of-the-people they had elected. Mr Widodo, who had risen from a small-time furniture businessman in Solo, Central Java, to become Solo’s mayor and Jakarta’s governor, had once claimed his family shunned politics.

He was also refreshingly unconventional. He shopped locally, rocked out to Megadeth and Metallica and made surprise visits, or blusukan, to check on remote areas. His close ally was Mr Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known as Ahok, an ethnic Chinese Christian who served as his deputy governor in Jakarta.

In recent weeks, scandal grew as reports exposed his family’s lavish lifestyle, including private jet trips, designer goods and expensive sandwiches.

Amid the outrage, the Indonesian leader expressed respect for the country’s democratic institutions and retreated to work from Nusantara, the new administrative capital in East Kalimantan, from Sept 12. Though it is still under construction, he is expected to stay there for the remainder of his term.

He was indeed a “Man Of Contradictions”, or so went the title of the first English-language political biography of the President published in September 2020.

“He is caught between democracy and authoritarianism, openness and protectionism, Islam and pluralism. Jokowi’s incredible story shows what is possible in Indonesia – and it also shows the limits,” the book’s author Ben Bland wrote.

Despite recent negative headlines, few would dispute that Mr Widodo has excelled in infrastructure and social aid. He remains a popular president, with an approval rating that reached a record 77.2 per cent in an April 2024 survey by pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia, consistent with other polls in the past year.

During his presidency, Mr Widodo launched several initiatives to reduce poverty and enhance welfare, such as the Kartu Indonesia Sehat health card and Kartu Indonesia Pintar smart card, providing health and education benefits to low-income families.

Infrastructure development, an area long neglected since the 1997 Asian financial crisis and which led to Indonesia’s stagnating growth, was a top priority of Mr Widodo’s. As governor, he inaugurated the construction of the country’s first metro system in Jakarta in 2013. When he became president the following year, he reformed the state budget to focus on growth-generating infrastructure projects, from roads and railways to port and airports, to bridges and power stations.

He also developed infrastructure, building new highways, airports and ports to enhance connectivity and drive economic growth. Key projects include the Trans-Java and Trans-Sumatra toll roads, the Jakarta-Bandung HSR known as Whoosh, and Nusantara, his legacy capital project still struggling to attract foreign funding.

The Jakarta MRT, the capital’s MRT system mooted in 1985 and designated a national project by his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in November 2006, was finally operational during Mr Widodo’s tenure.

Indonesia is planning to start the expansion of its MRT system in the third quarter of 2024 to connect Jakarta to the neighbouring provinces of Banten and West Java at an estimated cost of 165 trillion rupiah (S$13.9 billion). The new East-West line, spanning 84.1km from Banten’s Balaraja and West Java’s Cikarang industrial towns, will link up with the capital city’s MRT line and provide some relief to the traffic-congested roads.

Most recently, work has begun on a US$20 billion (S$26 billion) light rail transit (LRT) system on the popular resort island of Bali to ease road congestion from the airport. Tourist-dependent Bali attracts millions of foreign visitors a year, and the beach-dotted island’s narrow roads have been clogged with traffic jams since its reopening after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Pandjaitan said in September that the LRT system would be built underground and connect Bali’s international airport to popular tourist areas Canggu and Seminyak.

Ms Angela, the university student from Jakarta, noticed a significant improvement in public transport under the Jokowi administration.

“Before that… things weren’t done properly, and it seemed dangerous, or access was limited, and it couldn’t take me to where I needed to be,” she said.

Mr Widodo’s policies have aimed to stimulate economic growth and attract foreign investment, with a focus on improving business conditions and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.

With only a local degree in forestry, he acknowledged his limitations but excelled in appointing highly capable ministers. His finance minister, Ms Sri Mulyani Indrawati, was managing director of the World Bank Group and executive director of the International Monetary Fund board.

Economists have said Indonesia’s economy has been resilient amid rising global economic and geopolitical risks, achieving an economic growth above 5 per cent annually over the past 10 years.

Ms Firdhaussi, a 29-year-old product manager who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told ST: “While purchasing power may have decreased, it’s unfair to pin the blame entirely on Mr Widodo, considering that we just had a worldwide pandemic.”

The President appointed Ms Retno Marsudi as the first female foreign minister to attract investment and drive growth, despite initial doubts from senior diplomats who saw her as merely a bureaucrat. She took charge, becoming his spokeswoman in foreign diplomacy, an area where he was less skilled.

In the final years of his tenure, he came into his own, surprising the world by successfully hosting the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Bali in November 2022. There, he facilitated the first in-person meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping since 2017.

The leader of the world’s largest Muslim nation of 280 million people was also ranked in the top 50 of the Jordan-based Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre’s list of the world’s most influential Muslims in 2018 and 2019.

At home in Indonesia, Mr Widodo maintains his personal touch with his blusukan visits and photos with people he meets. Over the past decade, he has travelled extensively across the country to engage with citizens. His lively interactions – whether with schoolchildren or elderly farmers, discussing Indonesia’s national ideology of Pancasila and quizzing them about names of fish and giving away bicycles – have been widely shared on social media.

The President boasts millions of loyal supporters known as Jokowers.

Mr Muhammad Sulaiman, 87, from Cirebon, a city in West Java, carefully pulled out a weathered Polaroid of himself with the President from his phone case, reminiscing about the time when Mr Widodo was still Solo’s mayor.

“His personality is so pleasant, and he’s so humble,” he told ST. “He doesn’t always get things right, but just because he is an easy target as president, doesn’t mean we direct all our anger towards him.”

Mr Widodo’s administration has faced criticism over human rights issues, including allegations of excessive use of security forces in Papua, a far-eastern region that has provided him with strong electoral support but is also the site of a longstanding separatist insurgency.

The President’s laser focus on rapid development has sometimes conflicted with environmental preservation, as deforestation and land clearance for plantations such as palm oil continue, drawing criticism from environmentalists and indigenous communities.

Green activist Rafa Tania, 24, pointed to the Yogyakarta-Bawen toll road project that, according to local media outlet Tempo, used landfill soil from geological heritage areas and caused the loss of water sources needed by local people. “This clearly cancels Jokowi’s goodness through development projects because it actually results in conflict and environmental damage,” she told ST.

Despite efforts to tackle corruption, Mr Widodo’s administration has struggled with governance issues and corruption scandals.

Arguably, the most troubling issue during his tenure has been the deterioration of Indonesia’s democracy. Although he has neither confirmed nor denied it, his apparent ambition to create a family political dynasty – intended to extend his influence beyond his presidency – has disappointed many Indonesians.

Mr Juhri, 57, a street vendor from West Java, said Mr Widodo “seems to have fallen into the previous trap of past presidents” by involving his children in politics.

He told ST: “To me, Jokowi is a mixed bag. While he’s done good things for the country, he’s also repeating mistakes made by previous presidents, and to me, it makes it hard to say if he’s good or bad. He’s complicated, let’s just say that.

“Jokowi should leave the office with dignity, and stop playing games.”