From the day he contested for Presidency, Jokowi was cool.
He respected everyone and even called his contenders his friends and fellow statesmen.

Few maneuvers were made to undermine him.
Threats were also made to stall the Presidential inauguration.
What we saw was just him smiling and having faith that “insya-allah” in god’s will, all will be well.

Indeed 7 days before 20th Oct, the political battle from opposition parties began to simmer down.

Despite all that has happened, Jokowi even visited Prabowo’s residence to show friendship and future cooperation. A really great initiative.

Today, Jokowi was installed as Indonesia’s 7th President.

He was in a suit with a red tie during this ceremony. Once over, he was back in his trademark long sleeve shirt, tucked out with sleeves rolled up.

His speech was simple. Calling upon everyone to work really hard to build this huge Indonesian nation. And he also stressed on good governance.

Further humility and mutual respect was seen via his automatic gesture and body language. When he was giving away the “tumpeng” traditional yellow rice to recipients, he BOWED to them.

This gesture was in respect to these recipients for their achievements in life. One was lady single mother who worked as a taxi driver and brought up 2 kids on her own, the other was a young school student who was a champion in an international Olympiad competition and the third was to a cake seller who earned his keeps by walking from village to village. He BOWED to all of them. Simply marvelous and a wonderful gesture to be admired.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. On stage when prayers were made, an Islam ulama was heading the prayer. AMAZINGLY wonderful to see was that religious leaders from other minority religions in Indonesia – Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu were all standing alongside the Muslim ulama saying prayers together. What a great sight indeed.
Religious harmony and mutual respect.

At point of this posting, indeed there is much to look forward to under Jokowi’s leadership for the next 5 years.

Congratulations Pak Jokowi. You are indeed a symbol of humility and mutual respect that ought to be admired ; and a symbol that so many of us could learn from regardless of our social status, position and background.

@7.15 pm : 20 Oct 2014