The strong electoral win by Joko Widodo, the popular mayor of the central Java city of Solo, in the Jakarta governor’s race is being regarded in Indonesia as having two important consequences. The first is that Jokowi, as he is known, is widely regarded as a reformer who was named Indonesia’s best mayor for cleaning up the city of Solo and who now has a chance – or the burden – of taking on Jakarta itself, a sprawling, traffic-choked, polluted conurbation of 10.1 million people governed by a maze of conflicting jurisdictions. The city is sinking toward sea level because of the wells that have drawn down for groundwater. Its sewage system is nonexistent.
The Fallout from the Jakarta Gubernatorial Race
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The Fallout from the Jakarta Gubernatorial Race
The strong electoral win by Joko Widodo, the popular mayor of the central Java city of Solo, in the Jakarta governor’s race is being regarded in Indonesia as having two important consequences. The first is that Jokowi, as he is known, is widely regarded as a reformer who was named Indonesia’s best mayor for cleaning up the city of Solo and who now has a chance – or the burden – of taking on Jakarta itself, a sprawling, traffic-choked, polluted conurbation of 10.1 million people governed by a maze of conflicting jurisdictions. The city is sinking toward sea level because of the wells that have drawn down for groundwater. Its sewage system is nonexistent.
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