Trouble in the ‘City of Heroes’: Surabaya Mayor Ibu Risma Confirms Plans to Resign

The Jakarta Globe, February 27, 2014.


Jakarta. An embattled Tri Rismaharini tearfully confirmed rumors that she planned to step down as the mayor of Surabaya on Thursday, telling a crowd of supporters gathered outside the mayor’s office that she would vacate her post in protest of an ongoing dispute with Indonesia’s main opposition party.

“This morning I gathered all public agencies and working units to bid them farewell,” Risma told the crowd, the Indonesian news portal Tempo.co reported on Thursday. “So why do you [ask me to stay?] I don’t know what to say.”

The public has rallied behind Risma, expressing their support and urging the popular mayor to remain in office. The hashtag #SaveRisma has received hundreds of tweets and graced the cover of Tempo, Indonesia’s most prominent investigative magazine, above an illustration of Risma fighting to keep a massive bull — the symbol of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) — at bay.

The mayor’s supporters urged Risma to rethink her plans to step down. She addressed the crowd, tears running down her face, on Thursday, and said that she couldn’t make any promises.

“This is not easy for me,” she said.

The nation’s first directly elected female mayor is a figure widely seen as one of the few beacons of hope in Indonesia’s otherwise dismal political sphere. She first caught the public’s eye as a down-to-earth public official more at home with Surabaya’s working class than the city’s elites. The mayor fought for populist programs during her tenure, working to improve education, healthcare and public transit in a place once described by Dutch poet Louis Couperus as a ”dirty city full of pretensions and greed.”

Risma was supported by the PDI-P during her successful 2010 campaign to head Indonesia’s second-largest city. But the relationship soon soured as Risma refused to approve plans to construct a Rp 8 trillion ($680 million) toll road through Surabaya, arguing that the city’s residents shouldn’t have to pay to use public infrastructure. The Surabaya City Council pushed for a vote of no confidence in a failed attempt to oust the mayor less than a year into her five-year term. The toll road, which was opposed by local residents, was dead on the table. But the opposition to Risma’s atypical approach to leadership was far from over.

When Risma’s deputy mayor Bambang Dwi Hartono left the position to mount a failed bid for the East Java governor’s seat, the PDI-P appointed its own choice as the new deputy mayor: local PDI-P head Wisnu Sakti Buana, the then deputy speaker of the city council and a vocal critic of Risma’s more populist-minded decisions.

It took Wisnu weeks to meet with the mayor, only doing so during a Feb. 5 luncheon at city hall where he reportedly petitioned for the construction of a hotel on top of an area dedicated as green space. Risma denied the request, further inspiring anger among the city’s PDI-P politicians.

“It’s up to her whether she wanted to make it underground to make it invisible or up in the skies, but most importantly the highway has to be made,” Wisma said, according to Tempo Magazine. “If not, she might just as well just turn Surabaya from a city of commerce to a tourist city.”

A later blowup over Risma’s decision to raise the tax on billboard advertising brought further ire from city council. The dispute, which some city officials argued was in violation of a ministerial decree, eventually pulled Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi into the fray. The minister sided with Risma in the controversy, backing the mayor in her insistence on discouraging rampant advertising in the city of three million.

A series of exposes on the horror’s of Surabaya’s grim zoo threatened to taint the public’s perception of the mayor, despite the fact that the animals, like all endangered species in Indonesia, were technically the property of the Ministry of Forestry and under the central government’s care. Risma has since seized control of the ailing zoo, but not before years of neglect and corruption decimated the facilities animal population, culminating in a long series of headline-grabbing deaths that continue to this day.

The public has remained behind Risma throughout the controversy as the mayor continued to receive accolades over her commitment to free education and healthcare. The City Mayor Foundation named Risma its “Mayor of the Month” in February, applauding Risma for policies drafted during her short tenure.

But the PDI-P have seemingly turned on Risma, a move criticized as a political misstep ahead of an important election. The mayor broke down in tears on Metro TV’s Mata Najwa talk show, expressing that she wished to resign amid mounting pressure. The interview fueled speculation that Risma would step down over the PDI-P’s attempts to meddle in her mayoral affairs.

The opposition party denied any efforts to oust the mayor, going as far as claiming that there was an orchestrated conspiracy to turn the PDI-P against itself before the election season. Earlier this week the party’s executive board chairwoman Puan Maharani told Risma to keep her emotions in check.

“As a part of the PDI-P family, Risma should be careful, she has to be able to control her emotions and ambitions,” Puan said on Monday. “As a human being venting is allowed, but please don’t worsen the situation.”

Risma has been hinting for a week that she intended to resign. Earlier this month the mayor told Tempo Magazine “I’m ready to leave this room,” during an interview in her office. She gave no clear indication on Thursday of when she planned to vacate her post.



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The room is dark... I can't see them clearly, but sure I can smell earth' dirt and people's greed.  

Years ago it were the same forces causing Bu Megawati (former President and daughter of Bung Karno) to pack her things, after being whispered into her ears:" You should have listened to us. We told you: It is OUR way, or you'd better take the Highway."