Late on Sunday, the country’s election commission issued new rules that uphold the convention that candidates for such elections should be 30 or older. 

Indonesia’s two-term limit means that President Jokowi must step down this October, but his eldest son will be vice-president in the incoming administration, which makes the attempt to manipulate age limits for his third son to contest polls even more baffling.

Earlier this month, in Thailand, meanwhile, Paetongtarn Shinawatra became prime minister just three days after she turned 38. Her election as the leader of the Pheu Thai party her father Thaksin Shinawatra founded was precipitated by a constitutional court dismissal of her predecessor, Srettha Thavisin, for the impropriety of appointing a cabinet minister convicted of corruption. 

The court has shown time and again that it does what is expedient for Thailand’s conservative establishment, notably its military elite that runs political parties of its own. The decision to dismiss Srettha came on the heels of a court decision to disband Move Forward, a party that won the most seats in the last parliamentary election in 2023. 

It is widely believed the party was kept out for its proposal to reform Thailand’s lese majeste laws, introduce competition laws to rein in Thailand’s oligopolies and curb the power of the military.

Nepotism in politics, long the norm in South Asia, is making a dramatic comeback in Southeast Asia’s large countries. The most phoenix-like ascension is that of Bongbong Marcos, elected president of the Philippines a couple of years ago, who arose from the rubble of protests in the 1980s that led to the exile of his father Ferdinand Marcos on allegations that he had siphoned off billions of dollars as president.

The biggest surprise, however, is the reckless urgency of President Jokowi’s desire to put his sons in prominent positions before he steps down this year. The legacy of a presidency that has had many successes—such as keeping a lid on religious tensions and curbing militancy—has been tarnished. 

Seeking to secure political power as a family inheritance has hurt his reputation. Ironically, it was partly built on Jokowi wresting power away from Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia’s first president’s daughter, in large part because the country warmed to the humility of the former furniture business owner and mayor of a small town. 

Remarkably, Jokowi then insisted that none of his family members could compete for projects in the city. During that time, he developed a reputation for being a pragmatist who made unheralded visits to neighbourhoods and markets to hear from citizens themselves, a practice he continued occasionally as president.

This reputation helped Jokowi achieve national prominence when he was elected governor of Jakarta in 2012. But in seeking to extend his influence after he steps down, Jokowi has overplayed his hand. In 2023, the constitutional court conveniently lowered the age limit for candidates seeking to be president to 35 from 40. 

This paved the way for Jokowi’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 36, to be a vice-presidential candidate on what became the winning ticket that will see Prabowo Subianto take over as president later this year. That success may have led Jokowi to get more ambitious.

The pity is Jokowi had made significant progress managing the economy, in part by appointing Sri Mulyani, a former World Bank vice-president, as finance minister. 

As the end of his presidency approaches, inflation was 2.13% in July and has mostly been below 3%, levels that would make Indians envious. Domestic and foreign direct investment hit $90 billion last year, up 17.5%.

Bangkok may seem modern to a visitor, but its politics are anything but. A Thai prohibition on discussing the royal family in public is an anachronism, as is the military’s inability to exit politics. 

Tourism aside, the economy is in the doldrums and in urgent need of fresh ideas that Move Forward, which won the most seats in the 2023 election, was well placed to push. Its then leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, has a joint degree in public administration and business from Harvard and MIT. 

Just as the government was being formed in July last year, the election commission disqualified Pita on the grounds that the party’s plans to reform lese majeste laws was somehow an attempt to overturn the country’s “democratic regime with the king as head of state.” 

Without fresh leadership, Thailand’s industrial base will hollow out, largely because its generals have allowed China to muscle in with direct investments and massive exports.

Observers will point out that this is not that different from the US, where former president Donald Trump appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner special envoy to the Middle East. 

After the aptly named Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE in 2020, Kushner was asked why he had not concentrated on the Israeli-Palestinian issue instead. 

“Those issues aren’t as complicated as people have made them out to be,” he said. Such a breathtaking sense of entitlement, reflected also in Jokowi’s moves, is an indictment of nepotism.