Popularity, Platforms and Potential Power: The Political Rise of Indonesian Governors

One year after taking office on 20 February 2025, Indonesia’s regional heads (governors) are operating under increasingly tight fiscal conditions. Even so, a February 2026 face-to-face survey by Indikator Politik indicates that some governors remain exceptionally popular. From 7,200 respondents surveyed in 20 provinces, Indonesians’ average approval ratings for their governors were at 67.4 per cent. (Provincial sample sizes ranged from 100 to 800 respondents.)

Three governors stood out with approval ratings above 80 per cent: West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi (95.4 per cent), Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X (88.3 per cent) and North Maluku Governor Sherly Tjoanda (85.2 per cent). Many others performed far less well, with ratings clustered around or below 50 per cent.

Why do these few governors command overwhelming public approval despite tighter fiscal constraints? Strikingly, their popularity exceeds the public’s satisfaction levels with the performance of their respective provincial administrations. This suggests that voters are responding not only, and perhaps not primarily, to institutional delivery, but to the governors’ personal appeal. Chart 1 illustrates this gap, comparing the most popular governors’ approval ratings with average approval levels for their governments across 23 policy areas. This gap matters because it indicates that governors can accumulate substantial personal political capital even when evaluations of their governments’ performances are mixed or even poor. In practice, that gives highly popular governors greater room to shape public narratives, dominate local politics and potentially convert personal appeal into influence in wider national contests.

Chart 1: Top Three Most Popular Governors Versus Their Administrations, Indonesia (%)

* Editor’s Note: The author uses “satisfaction” to mean the same thing as “approval”.

The opposite pattern can be seen in Jakarta and Central Java, however, where average satisfaction levels with the performance of the provincial government are higher than the governors’ approval ratings for their first 100 days in office (Chart 2). This contrast reinforces the broader point that citizens need not evaluate governors and provincial administrations in the same way. In some cases, they may reward visible personal leadership more strongly than bureaucratic or institutional performance; in others, they may view the government apparatus more favourably than the individual leading it. This distinction matters because the performance of a provincial administration depends on a wider set of factors, including bureaucratic capacity, fiscal resources and other institutional conditions not reducible to the governor’s personal appeal. Jakarta, for instance, has a regional budget almost three times larger than that of West Java, and benefits from substantial locally generated revenues, especially from regional taxes.

Chart 2: Public Satisfaction Levels For the First 100 Days, Java Governors (%)

What explains the high approval ratings of governors like Dedi and Sherly? This cannot be separated from the success of their social media campaigns, as social media has become a highly strategic communication channel in Indonesia, mainly because it reaches a large share of the population. Both governors have successfully aligned their digital campaigns with offline activities. They consistently broadcast in-person engagements across their social media platforms. Importantly, both, at least partially, manage their own accounts. They exhibit “authenticity”, which refers not to spontaneity alone, but to the perception that the communication reflects a leader’s voice, choices and persona rather than being outsourced to staff. This is visible in how both leaders reportedly help to decide what content is produced, review posts before publication, regularly vlog and occasionally respond directly to comments. Their online presence does more than showcase ‘style’: it exemplifies a form of digital populism.

… citizens need not evaluate governors and provincial administrations in the same way.

The key advantage of these platforms lies in their ability to make Dedi’s and Sherly’s leadership appear more intimate and immediate. Nevertheless, they employ different communication styles. Dedi builds emotional closeness with the public through storytelling, field visits and spontaneous interactions with citizens, which portray him as empathetic, responsive and physically present among the people, thereby strengthening public trust and feelings of representation. Moreover, visually compelling and human interest-oriented content easily goes viral, expanding exposure and reinforcing perceptions of effective leadership beyond concrete policies.

In contrast, Sherly’s communication style tends to be more technocratic, calm and institutional. She emphasises policy substance, such as government programmes, policy achievements and future development plans. However, Sherly sometimes adopts a more interactive style, engaging directly with citizens. For example, when visiting beneficiaries of housing renovation programmes, she engages in dialogue with residents, listens to their concerns and needs and explains government programmes to them. These interactions complement her communication style with a sense of social closeness, ensuring that policies are perceived as responses to citizens’ lived experiences.

The high popularity of these two governors appears to be translating into political capital. Recent national surveys indicate that Dedi has risen to second place among potential 2029 presidential candidates, while Sherly has entered the national political consciousness, ranking eighth among potential presidential contenders. Although Sherly’s chances of advancing further as a national leader are limited due to religious and ethnic factors (she is a Christian and an Indonesian of Hakka Chinese descent), this nevertheless reflects her political appeal.

At the same time, platform-generated popularity is inherently fragile if it is not reinforced by governance outcomes. Politicians’ rising popularity inevitably raises public expectations: at some point, citizens will judge these leaders not only on their communication skills and social media image, but also on their ability to address complex governance challenges. Public perception can shift quickly; there is no guarantee that governors who are highly popular today will remain as popular before the 2029 polls.

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