Following President Joko Widodo's Twitter Tracks
Jakarta. President Joko Widodo has been busy running the largest country in Southeast Asia in the past year in the face of a slowing economy as well as endless social and political hurdles, and he's using Twitter to prove it.
The country's first leader without a military or an elite background, Joko started actively using his Twitter account again back in June, after being absent from the social platform for eight months, and opened communications once again with the public, comprising a growing population of young, tech-savvy and politically outspoken individuals.
During his time as a governor and a presidential candidate, he used @jokowi_do2 as a Twitter handle, before changing it to @jokowi when he tweeted for the first time as president in June.
Since his inauguration on Oct. 20, Joko's followers on Twitter increased by more than half to nearly 3.67 million users as of Tuesday. By comparison, his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was in office for 10 years, now tweets to an audience of more than eight million.
Joko put out an average of four tweets every day between June and October this year, tweeting about a range of topics and his daily activities, including his famous community visits — the so-called blusukan — to diplomatic actions, according to a statement from Twitter Indonesia's official blog on Wednesday.
His first tweet as a president was also his most retweeted post so far with more than 12,500 retweets: "Thanks be to god I can have sahur with my family. This is my first tweet as president," the tweet read, referring to the pre-dawn meal Muslims usually have during the holy month of Ramadan.
Joko was also the first president in the Asia-Pacific region to create an account on Twitter's live broadcast platform Periscope, as he broadcast his experience at a carnival in West Kalimantan."[The president] has chosen Twitter as a platform to communicate his activities, whether to address ongoing issues or to respond to the public's concerns suggestion sent via Twitter," Cipluk Carlita, a Twitter Indonesia spokeswoman, said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The journey ahead is still long, but Indonesians are definitely anticipating what breakthroughs the president will [make] on Twitter in terms of good digital governance."
Joko has had to swallow a bitter pill in his first year of presidency, having to maintain his ambitious infrastructure agenda and tackle frequent political jabs against a lagging global and national economy, which has taken a toll on his popularity among Indonesians.
Indonesians have been flocking to Twitter to voice out their opinions and concerns on the president's performance in the past year, with the hashtag #1TahunJokowi, or "One Year with Jokowi," trending worldwide.
Lalila Faiha (@rimhasyafira) from Palembang, South Sumatra, used the hashtag to raise her concerns about the ongoing haze crisis in several regions in Indonesia: "Instead of breathing fresh air every morning, we breathe haze that still won't go away. What is the fate of our region, sir?#1tahunjokowi"
Meanwhile, others like Edwina Wowor (@edwinawowor) encouraged the president: "Jokowi keep working, haters will be haters #1tahunjokowi"
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