Nepo Baby at Its Worst

Meet Muhammad Firman Faiki, a 22-year-old entrepreneur from Pemalang, Central Java, who runs billions-worth footwear business, not in his hometown but in another city in another province, in Mojokerto, East Java, with his brand, Alope – sandal and shoe products.

Although the brand has been established since 2018, it was only around 2 years that it garnered attention and got a lot of customers. Alope can now have an average monthly revenue of Rp 300 million to 500 million, and in some good months the sales can even reach Rp 2 billion.

But it’s not instant. Firman, who comes from just an ordinary family, has worked hard to reach such a level since junior high school by selling anything to make ends meet. During the Covid 19 pandemic in the last two years, which hit many Indonesian businesses, Alope even can take off, and increase its sales and operation. Firman can help create works for many young villagers in the surrounding areas during the pandemic, directly employing 20 people while having sale agents of 100 people across Indonesia.

Other than Firman, Indonesia has Isya Yusril, a 24-old-year self-made tycoon in Malang, East Java, with businesses ranging from property, finance, education, retail to production house and car wash service in several cities in Java. He has been rising and falling in various other businesses – from selling satay, crackers to using food truck, which he called Zello, to sell his food – before steadying his conglomeration of various businesses into profitable and lasting endeavors.

These young Indonesians are just two examples of many others who have worked hard to climb the food chain on their own without any helps from their relatives or patron. While they are still growing and many things can happen along the way, their success can’t be underestimated because surviving let alone thriving in such a business environment is difficult to say the least, especially without a silver spoon to feed them along the process. They thrive purely because of their brains, wits, perseverance, toughness, innovative mind and creativity. These guys are no joke.

With Indonesia sorely needing competent and proven leader, they should have been among perfect candidates to lead the country in business and, especially in politics, considering that more and more youngsters are entering public service and run for office and how rotten, incompetent and corrupt the nation’s current decision makers are.

Rotten Political Recruitment

While they are surely bright and proven innovator who will hugely provide benefits to the country if they are drawn into politics, given chance to run for office and allowed to make public policies and decisions, they will not and can’t do that because first, they probably know how dirty and helpless the Indonesian politics is and how much they must give up for something they are not sure what to receive, and second, the country’s political system itself has given them no chance to run for office or even shut the door entirely for them enter.

Despite their proven ingenuity and success in businesses in such a young age, what political party will recruit them as a candidate for a mayor or regent job, for instance, without any strong political connection? Or if they want to get a ticket to run as a candidate for any legislative or executive offices, they have to pay billions of rupiah. This, they will never want to do.

After all, selling tickets is the main source of income for most, if not all, Indonesia’s political parties. It means people drawn into politics or run for office are those who are willing to pay for the ticket regardless of their skills or achievement, a system that blocks or even scares away the nation’s bright minds with proven skills and success. This system of political recruitment, thus, creates a condition where the country’s public office top positions are filled with people with money and connection – regardless whether they are corruptors, criminals, thugs, or unskilled and unproven – while the nation’s best minds are sidelined, allowing incompetent individuals to make decision for millions of people once they win offices.

That’s why more often than not people end up being forced to choose one bad candidate from the other in elections for regents, mayors, governors or legislators across Indonesia. And that’s why Indonesia ends up having executives and legislators making questionable decision, or having no idea what they are doing.

Enter Kaesang Pangarep, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s youngest son, who has expressed his desire to run for Solo mayor inheriting the job from his elder brother Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the current Solo mayor who previously have stated his interest to run for the governorship of either Jakarta or Central Java.

Jokowi, Gibran and Kaesang all know very well that time is running out if Gibran wants to climb the rank to become governor, a starting point he can use later to mount a presidential campaign, and for Jokowi to keep Solo ownership through his son. To ensure these goals can be achieved It must be done in 2024 elections while he is still the country’s president as his attempt to extend his term for another five years hit a wall.

But who is Kaesang, 28, other than the fact that he is Jokowi’s son?

A successful businessman? By owning a number of businesses, apparently, he is a businessman. But successful? Not really.

First of all, he lives with a silver spoon in his mouth and everything has been handed to him on a silver platter. As the son of successful furniture businessman who then becomes Solo mayor, Jakarta governor and then Indonesia’s president, he has so many people around him feeding him with ideas and money however and whenever he wants it. Kaesang is not Firman or Isya, who have to worry about failure, have no room for error and have been forced to work hard as failure will derail their life once and for all. Kaesang does not know hardship of running out of money as so many will lend him the fund when he needs it, allowing him to venture into various business adventures.

Despite all of these privileges, most of his businesses are either closed down or slowing down.

One of Kaesang’s popular business is Sang Pisang. It’s not clear if the business is profitable as it has closed down 40 of its 100 outlets. It now still has 60 outlets but it surely does not scream a successful venture. Then, there is his coffee business, Ternak Kopi, which now does not exist anymore after it closed down all of its 40 outlets as Covid-19 hit the country, and its online operation stopped already.

Next, Siap Mas is his brand for variety of snacks and crackers. The brand’s Instagram has not been updated since 2020. Then there is drinking brand, Goola, which recently got US$5 million investment from JWC Ventures. However, it is not clear what happens to this brand its account in Tokopedia is not active while its Instagram account has not been updated.

Kaesang also inherits Markobar, a brand of pancakes, from Gibran, tried his luck in catfish farming in 2019, and also having a number of app-based food business, spectacularly buying a fraction of shares of a shrimp farming company for around 100 billion rupiah. The shares apparently continue to lose its value. So, none of those businesses is extraordinary – far from it.

The point is that Kaesang is neither an innovative nor successful businessman by any measures. Compare him to Firman or Isya, and we can see a pretender there. So, why Kaesang? Exactly. He is the President’s son. In fact, just like his elder brother, Gibran, and his brother-in-law Bobby Nasution, now the mayor of Medan, Jokowi’s name is the only thing they have. Omitting this status leaves them as nobody.

Lasting Destructive Impacts

Saying that Gibran and Bobby – and later Kaesang – all compete to get their position is just a lie, and an insult to people’s intelligent.

Sure, they formally run in a regional election but everything has been clear to make sure they all win the office comfortably. There has never been any competition, it’s all formality. The challengers either have been too afraid to compete against a president’s son, or they were just being put up there so that it looked like a competition and legitimate process under the regulations.

Jokowi is the first Indonesia’s president whose children grabbed executive position in the region while still a president. Even Soeharto did not or could not do this.

This element also sets Jokowi apart from his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. While the latter could restrain himself from giving his children jobs at executive offices while in power for he seemed to believe he’s still having dignity, claiming himself as a truly democrat, the former just seems to have no reservations in breaking any boundaries, or any belief in democratic principles, installing his family members in public jobs while still president at any opportunity.

Yudhoyono is perhaps now regretting his pride, seeing Jokowi successfully creating a dynasty that could outlast his own, and realizing how difficult it has been for his son, Agus Harimurti, to winning office. Agus ran and failed because Yudhoyono was no longer the president when he was pushed into politics, seemingly now wandering and waiting for stronger figures to pick him up. And Agus is a much popular and much experienced than either Gibran and Bobby when they ran for office, and certainly more than Kaesang, adding the fact that his family owns a political party who once won the country’s legislative elections.

Nepotism clearly violates sense of people’s justice and meritocratic system, blocking the most talented and capable person to rise. That’s why the so-called nepo (nepotism) baby is a hot topic recently in Hollywood, show business and modeling world, referring, for instance, to Hailey Bieber, whose father Stephen Baldwin, and her three uncles — Alec, Daniel, and William — are well-known actors, or Brooklyn Beckham whose parents are David Beckham and Victoria “Posh” Beckham.

But nepotism in politics is entirely at different level as it affects public decision with a real consequence for millions of people, not like those in Hollywood, show business and modeling world which is largely private. Such nepotism inflicts damages to democracy and its most basic principle, equal opportunity for all. It violates people’s sense fairness and sense of justice.

Also, nepotism usually comes with corruption and abuses of power. Kaesang’s ease of getting fund to finance his businesses have become source of concerns of the media. Where did he get Rp 100 billion to buy that shrimp company? What is the deal? After all, there is no such thing as free lunch.

But the lasting destructive impact of Jokowi’s supporting his sons and son-in-law while in power is the creation of precedence for his successors, as well as its demonstrating effect to others in power – from village head, regent, mayor to governor — to cement their dynasty using the power in their hands.

Jokowi’s family nepotism and effort to create a dynasty thus validates the on-going practice of nepotism across the archipelago. Jokowi’s Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, for instance, managed to install his son to become Kediri regent in East Java. As of now, there are dozens of active mayors, regents and governors who have had their family members running for office.

Jokowi has normalized and institutionalized the practice in which his successors – or any state officials — can use their power to push their own children to win office exactly while they are still in office. This is, we believe, the legacy Jokowi will be remembered most.

Sumber :

https://omong-omong.com/editorial-nepo-baby-at-its-worst