https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240205_35/
Within the next week, Indonesia may have a new president. On February 14 Indonesia is having a presidential election. The debate is between 4 different people Joko Widodo, Anies Baswedan, Prabowo Subianto, and Gajanar Pranowo. However, other than Widodo, the other 3 had a presidential debate. Where they generally discussed social welfare and measures to combat poverty. All three of them were building off of the prior president’s programs and things he tried to start as president. Because of the struggle Indonesia are dealing with economically, anything that was discussed led back to the economy. Although in the first article I wrote about (Hackers getting into websites including those run by the government) there is more that the presidents need to discuss but due to the amount of support needed for their economy that became the top priority. Overall Ganjar believes the biggest problem facing Indonesia is inequality. After the debate, the polls showed that Prabowo had the majority of the vote at 47%. That difference between him and his competitors is very large to the point that looking the percentage of voters that are for the other candidates combined is still less than him. I think this is very interesting because in the United States while many people can run for president there tend to only be two main containers that are endorsed by the main parties. From what I gleaned from this article Indonesia political parties do not work the same. Seeing as they had 4 candidates that were still being considered up to a week before the deadline to vote. I also thought that it was interesting that one candidate has 47% of the vote. That number seems abnormally large which makes me think there is a possibility that there is some shifty business. This can be related to class because depending on who wins this election could decide what Indonesias foreign policy will look like. This is important globally because as China becomes a bigger threat in this region how other countries react will be crucial in determining the United States and China’s reactions. If someone is elected who is more liberal-minded then that will work to the advantage of the United States because, in the past decades, we have been very liberal-minded. However, if the person who takes control of Indonesia is a realist then they may be more inclined to work with China if the situation would be beneficial for Indonesia which could hurt the United States in the long run.