Dr Max Lane is Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
For 50 years he has written articles and books on Indonesian politics, history and culture. He has been a Second Secretary at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta; Principal Research Officer, Senate Committee of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade; written hundreds of articles for newspapers and non-government organisations and am a published translator of Indonesian literary works, including works by Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Rendra.
He has been an academic at the University of Sydney, Victoria University (Melbourne), Murdoch University and the National University of Singapore and lectured at universities in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States.
The rapprochement of Jokowi and Prabowo has resulted in the unusual absence of a polarising rivalry among the main political parties. Nor have there been fundamental differences among parties over major policy questions. Instead, their manoeuvres have been concerned with positioning their choice of presidential candidates for the 2024 elections.
Recent events in Papua underscore the fact that there is no solution that is entirely free of risk for Jakarta. Instead, the choice is between separate sets of risks.
