Populism and Effective Government: Case of Bandung City

The implementation of direct democracy to elect local leaders (governor, mayor, or regent) in Indonesia have brought significant changes in the dynamics of politics and government at the local level. One of the main changes is the emergence of an innovative figure who was elected as head of the region and successfully conducted a number of breakthrough programs in the region. In Bandung City, Mayor Ridwan Kamil made a number of changes in the city planning that successfully made the city of Bandung as a tourist icon. He also manage to engage public and civil society organizations to participate in developing Bandung City through voluntary acts. By utilizing information technology and social media, Ridwan Kamil initiates a more public-friendly communication model. However, these changes are also not free from criticism that these are merely a political imaging and populism practices. In a direct election system, figure-based politics becomes inevitable phenomenon, meanwhile at a same time, political parties are weakened and suffered public delegitimation. The increasing of figure-based politics and declining political representative then raised populism in governance, both in national and local level. In this context, there is criticism that questioned whether populism would support or otherwise constraint the establishment of effective government. Despite that populism creates pro-public provision of public services, but it is also susceptible to systemic sustainability and fragile in terms of public control toward the decision-making process. This paper uses the case of Bandung City to analyse how populist leadership impact on effective government, particularly in ensuring sustainable innovation and public access to exercise popular control over public policy formulation.