A Nation on the Brink

Indonesia’s fiscal space suddenly feels like an ICU, in the words of columnist Ahmadie Thaha. It is not a line from street activists or fringe economists, but from the Finance Minister, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa—custodian of the state purse and the budget’s heartbeat. The line is not mere rhetoric; it is an alarm sounding not in the ear but in the chest.

Ironically, the country is like a patient praised by a foreign doctor: ‘Its condition is stable, good,’ as the IMF puts it. Stable? Yet at home, leaders speak of merely surviving.

It is like someone smiling in a family photo while having not eaten the night before. Or a house repainted on the facade while its foundation slowly rots and is gnawed by termites.

At this point, we must be honest: survival mode does not mean waiting to die, but it certainly is not living comfortably.

It is a phase when any small mistake could be fatal. When waste is no longer just foolishness but a form of collective suicide. When budget leaks are no longer ‘accidental’, but sabotage of the future.

The problem is this country has a strange habit: large holes are closed by digging new ones. Old debt is repaid with new debt—like patching a leaky roof by opening another tile.

Ironically, down there, budgetary rats party. They do not care whether this is survival mode or festival mode. As long as there is a gap, they will gnaw away.

And then we look outward. There is one country that for almost half a century has lived in conditions even harsher than mere survival mode: Iran. Pressed, embargoed, isolated. But strangely, from that pressure resilience is born. From constraint, innovation is born.