JAKARTA: Campaigning for Indonesia’s July presidential election officially kicked off Wednesday, with favorite Joko Widodo facing a tough challenge from a Suharto-era former general with a chequered human rights record.
Widodo, who won legions of fans during his time as Jakarta governor, started the campaign period with a ceremony at his Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s headquarters in the capital.
The party head handed him a cone of rice, a traditional gift in Indonesian culture to mark important events. He was due to set off in the evening to the eastern region of Papua, his first stop on a mammoth tour round the archipelago to win votes for the July 9 poll.
His only opponent, ex-general Prabowo Subianto, was heading to Bandung, in the west of the main island of Java, to begin campaigning later Wednesday.
Voters face a stark choice between Widodo, seen as a fresh face in a country still dominated by figures from the three-decade Suharto dictatorship, and Prabowo, who has deep roots in the past.
Widodo has enjoyed a a meteoric rise, from small town mayor on Java, to Jakarta governor, and now the likely next president of Indonesia.
The 52-year-old’s humble background and common touch — he regularly tours the sprawling city’s slums in casual clothes — has made him popular in a country where leaders have typically come from the ranks of the military or wealthy, aloof elites.
“I will vote for Jokowi as he is humble and close to ordinary people,” said Suradi, 60, a motorized rickshaw driver in the capital who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
In contrast, Prabowo was a leading figure in the military who commanded the army’s special forces in the dying days of the Suharto era in the late 1990s and has admitted ordering the abduction of democracy activists.
Indonesian presidential campaign kicks off
Indonesian presidential campaign kicks off
DR Congo says M23 withdrawal from key city a ‘distraction’
- “The son, M23, offers itself in sacrifice before the American mediator to protect the father, Rwanda,” Muyaya said
- The announcement is a “non-event, a diversion, a distraction”
KINSHASA: The Congolese government on Wednesday said the M23 armed group’s recent announcement that it would withdraw troops from the key eastern city of Uvira was a “distraction.”
The Rwanda-backed militia seized the strategic city near the border with Burundi last Wednesday, days after the Congolese and Rwandan governments signed a peace deal — an agreement US President Donald Trump had hailed as a “great miracle.”
“The son, M23, offers itself in sacrifice before the American mediator to protect the father, Rwanda,” Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said on Wednesday.
The announcement is a “non-event, a diversion, a distraction... We are waiting for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from all parts of our territory,” he added.
The M23’s latest advance has thrown the future of the peace process into doubt and raised fears of a wider regional war.
Its capture of Uvira — a city of several hundred thousand people — allowed it to control the land border with Burundi and cut the DRC off from military support from its neighbor.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that Rwanda had clearly violated the peace agreement it signed with its neighbor on December 4, and vowed unspecified “action” in response.
A day earlier, US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz accused Rwanda of “leading the region toward more instability and toward war.”
Leader of the M23’s political branch announced Tuesday in a statement that the group would “unilaterally withdraw its forces from the city of Uvira, as requested by the US mediators.”
M23 fighters were still present in Uvira on Wednesday, according to residents contacted by AFP.
The DRC’s mineral-rich east has been ravaged by three decades of conflict. Since taking up arms again in 2021, the M23 has seized swathes of territory, leading to a spiralling humanitarian crisis.
While Kigali has never explicitly acknowledged backing the armed group, Washington has directly blamed Rwanda for the M23’s capture of Uvira.
Muyaya accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of seeking to “entrench his control over this part of our country through violence,” arguing these actions “worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.”
At least 85,000 refugees have fled into Burundi since the advance, with the numbers rising daily, Burundian officials said Tuesday.
