On Oct. 20, 2014, Joko Widodo was sworn into office as Indonesian president after a campaign that promoted him as a clean and modest outsider against the patronage-steeped veterans of party politics. Many analysts thought the system was stacked against his presidency succeeding.
Now he is receiving a dubious accolade. The former humble small businessman and city mayor has become a "normal politician" who has learned to "accommodate" corrupt and rent-seeking opponents, according to Eve Warburton, an Indonesian specialist at the Australian National University.
