The names Joko and Widodo are so common in Java that the president of Indonesia can’t have dibs on his famous combination of the two.
Recently, many local media outlets went on a clickbaiting frenzy when they noticed that the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a strong opponent of president Jokowi’s administration, was nominating their own Joko Widodo for next year’s legislative election, resulting in misleading headlines like “PKS Nominates Joko Widodo.”
Well, it turns out that the Joko Widodo in question is not the president and that PKS is actually nominating two men with that moniker next year.
One Joko Widodo is a Boyolali-born PKS cadre who has registered to run for legislative office (DPRD) in Central Java province. The 46-year-old politician, who has a wider smile than even our cheerful president, was first to go viral for his name after the photo above circulated online — even though he’s been a PKS cadre since 1999.
“Hopefully this name brings good fortune. But, as far as I know, PKS has two legislative candidates named Joko Widodo,” he told Viva yesterday.
The other Joko Widodo is a member of the Semarang Regency Council and is running for the same office again next year. He, too, said he hopes the name brings him good fortune in the world of Indonesian politics.
Their commonalities with the president don’t end there. According to the second Joko Widodo, both he and Boyolali’s Joko Widodo are also both called Jokowi by their peers, though he did not say if they adopted the nickname before or after President Jokowi popularized it worldwide.
Well, good luck to the both of them. We look forward to the day when Jokowi #1 has to respond to criticism from Jokowi #2 regarding problems with Jokowi #3’s constituency.
