Leaving aside the genuine concerns about the quality of democracy in Indonesia, there’s no denying that there’s still a tremendous quantity of it. On 14 February almost 205 million enrolled voters — half of them under 40 — will have the opportunity not just to elect a president to replace Joko Widodo (Jokowi), but to choose between candidates from 18 national parties (plus 6 local parties in the province of Aceh) competing for over 20,000 seats in national, provincial and municipal legislatures.

It’s the biggest single-day election in the world. Yet it has attracted only belated attention in the international media, partly because 2024 offers up a suite of elections that give a more cheerful picture of democratic deepening (such as Taiwan), or more dramatically illustrate the global trends of democratic decay (such as Pakistan, India or the United States).

Indonesia’s elections may not trigger major civil unrest, destabilise global financial markets or shift the terms of geopolitical competition. But as Liam Gammon highlights in this week’s lead article, they speak to significant political changes that have taken place in Indonesia under the leadership of Jokowi since 2014.

With polls showing a strong lead for Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, ‘the question........

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