Brief Macro: Election Body Pressured / Lippo Tested / FDI / AGO Martyrs Foe / SMI on GDP / Matchfixing / CPO Fuel and more

In this briefing:

1. Election Body Pressured / Lippo Tested / FDI / AGO Martyrs Foe / SMI on GDP / Matchfixing / CPO Fuel

1. Election Body Pressured / Lippo Tested / FDI / AGO Martyrs Foe / SMI on GDP / Matchfixing / CPO Fuel

Police interrogated members of the independent General Election Commission (KPU), pursuant to a spurious case in which a coordinating minister has a conflict of interest.  If police persist, perceptions of the election’s legitimacy could suffer.  Lippo is under scrutiny for repudiating a foreign creditor — and the Information Ministry.  FDI fell y-o-y in Q418 but rose q-o-q.  Prosecutors blundered by jailing an opposition agitator for anodyne tweets.  Indrawati is sanguine about 2019 GDP.  The Football Association — a coveted rentier structure — is up for grabs again.  Pertamina’s Eni JV for green fuels from CPO is questionable on numerous levels.

Politics:  The Gerindra parliamentary candidate Ahmad Dhani suffered incarceration for having issued tweets in 2017 that judges deemed hateful.  The rock star is uncouth and has evoked hatefulness at times (he dressed as a Nazi in a 2014 ad for Prabowo Subianto) – but his sentence reflects work by prosecutors that is shoddy if not expressly politicized.  President Joko Widodo may lose more, from damage to his image, than he gains from the jailing of an opponent.  In any event, the case focuses overdue scrutiny on draconian aspects of the 2008 Electronic Transactions and Information Law (UU ITE) (Page 2).  Gerindra Chair Prabowo Subianto again harped on his claim that state debt is excessive.  Apart from being false, the claim is far from the concerns of voters.  With 10 weeks left to campaign, Prabowo has yet to critique Widodo effectively (p. 4). 

Election Preparations: If police continue to pursue spurious complaints from Hanura Chair Oesman Sapta Odang, the effectiveness of the General Election Commission (KPU) will be at stake (p. 5).  The 17 February one‑on‑one presidential debate will allow for unrestricted sparring during one segment (p. 6). 

Justice: Press scrutiny is focusing on a Commercial Court ruling that accepted a dubious settlement in bankruptcy proceedings for the Lippo Group subsidiary PT Internux.  The majority of creditors are clearly group affiliates.  Accepting their 30‑year restructuring hurts an offshore creditor, Raiffeisen, while mistreating the Information Ministry (p. 7). 

Papua: Yet another attack in Nduga District struck an aircraft, killing a soldier (p. 8).

Policy News: The government’s index of bureaucratic‑reform progress was static in 2018 (p. 10).  Pertamina intends to develop biorefineries in Sumatra with Italy’s Eni S.p.A., for the stated goals of promoting clean energy and reducing the trade deficit.  But the scheme may well do neither, if palm plantations expand at the expense of forest, while palm oil (CPO) exports contract.  The energy minister also mentioned subsidizing green fuel, which would be fiscally unsound and inequitable (p. 11). 

Economics: Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Chair Tom Lembong confirmed that fourth‑quarter Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) fell 12 percent year‑on‑year, although it at least rebounded 10 percent from the third quarter.  He reiterated criticism of government ranks for mis‑implementing the president’s policy vision (p. 13).  Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati emphasized potential to sustain GDP growth in 2019 based on consumer demand from households (p. 15).