Wanted: A trustworthy and competent Jakarta governor

Marco Kusumawijaya, Urban Development Consultant, Jakarta

How important, really, is a governor for Jakarta? He or she is important only if he or she becomes the star captain (think of Johan Cruyf, for example) of a total-football team consisting of all its population, wherein everybody is encouraged to play skillfully, picking up all available opportunities, and is given sufficient space to contribute his or her talents and abilities to win the game.

Why is this totality (not to be equated with totalitarianism) not only necessary but also the only way to win the game?

This year, the anniversary of Jakarta is special. It coincides with the occasion of electing for the first time a new governor after the fall of the New Order. Strong views are being aired. Not surprising really considering that the incumbent governor is one of the remaining appointees of the New Order. Making reform successful in Jakarta, by, among other things, ousting him from office, is therefore a very significant symbol of renewing the vigor of the reform movement as a whole.

Jakarta is now at its lowest ebb. Compared to the other capitals of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it ranks only above Phnom Penh and Vientiane. Among 40 Asian cities, it ranks 29th, below Bandung and Surabaya, actually.

That is according to a survey by the now defunct Asia Week. Nationally, Jakarta has become one of the tardiest cities in reforming its governance. Historically, as compared to the era of governor Ali Sadikin, Jakarta now rates lower in terms of safety and security, public discipline, trust between the people and the bureaucracy, pride among its people, cleanliness, poverty, environmental quality, and public infrastructure and services.

Jakarta needs to take a big leap into the mainstream of global and national competitiveness. It can no longer take for granted its privileges as the national capital. The case of the Bantar Gebang dump is only one example of its declining privileges.

The required big leap involves strategic issues such as a sound public transportation system that should enhance the efficient mobility of all the population, reducing the length of their wasted time in the streets from, say, an average of two hours to one hour per day. Land-use plans and controls should be enforced to support the transportation system and to achieve sustainable environmental quality.

Drastic measures should also be undertaken as regards environmental matters. Flood control is but one objective. More strategic than all the individual issues, however, is the inter- relation between them. A big leap forward is required to strategically bring Jakarta in the direction of becoming a just, green and revitalized sustainable city in all aspects.

All things considered, the current window of opportunity is a "now-or-never" moment for making strategic choices and actions, especially as it is so clear that the results will only become apparent after some time. Jakarta has been denied what it deserves for too long, while other world cities move ahead into the future confidently.

But Jakarta has been and will remain a city with a relatively high quality of infrastructural and human resources, including, ironically, the most skilled bureaucrats in the country. Plans and knowledge about what to do with Jakarta are abundant and never short. The metropolis has also boasts a very high degree of activism among its population. All sorts of civil society organizations can be found here.

Their activism during the latest flood disaster proved more productive than all the government's doings. Every single square centimeter of the metropolitan area contains some potential added-value, waiting to be actualized.

Parking and outdoor advertising are easy examples, to mention a few, of underexploited resources because of corruption and non- transparency.

Clearly, to improve (more than just to build) Jakarta is not a problem of what to do and resources, but of how to do it. For this, there is need for breakthroughs.

It is within that context that a governor, being a captain of a total football team, is a key success factor. Because the matter of how to do things is, above all, a matter of leadership and management. Jakarta requires a leader capable of mobilizing all its potential and the participation of its population to achieve the goal of total improvement.

To possess that capability, there is one absolute pre- requisite: The leader must gain the trust of the population, and bureaucracy, which he or she will need to clean up first of all. For that he needs to be absolutely clean. Only that way can the leader unite with the people in terms of motivation, vision and orientation.

His or her relationship with society will be mutually beneficial. Only with popular support can he build anew a clean, efficient and vigorous system, and a bureaucracy capable of serving and engaging in collaboration with the citizens to make the big, difficult leap. Only with a clean and trusted leader will people want to collaborate and participate in the ambitious programs that Jakarta deserves, and actually cannot put off embarking on, in order to survive amid tight global competition.

The politicians and bureaucrats can choose to corrupt the annual budget like kids stealing unripe mangoes, making it a paralyzed instrument year by year.

But, on the other hand, they can opt to use the same amount trusted to them wisely to mobilize the much larger capacity of the whole city. We need them to show us the correlation between what the annual budget does and the Gross Regional Domestic Product.

We need a trustworthy and competent governor capable of working together with us.