Indonesian presidential candidate Joko Widodo with supporters as he campaigns in Batujajar, West Bandung, in West Java.

Indonesian presidential candidate Joko Widodo with supporters as he campaigns in Batujajar, West Bandung, in West Java. Photo: AFP/Timur Matahari

JAKARTA - The one-time front-runner for Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, waited until the dying minutes of the campaign to pose tough questions about corruption to his opponent, Prabowo Subianto, who looked shaken by the attention.

Mr Joko, who last month started the series of five debates looking tentative, scored a clear win with a confident performance on Saturday night — the final event before campaigning officially ended at midnight.

But it's unclear if it will be enough to arrest a steep decline in his popularity over the three-month electoral marathon leading up to next Wednesday's election.

Mr Joko's running mate, Jusuf Kalla, waited until near the end of the debate to draw attention to a number of corruption scandals plaguing key members of the big coalition of six political parties assembled by Mr Prabowo.

"Mr Prabowo, in your campaign in Bandung yesterday you said that there are some thieves. We are not thieves. We don't have thieves [on our side] of beef, thieves of rice, thieves of oil, thieves of haj [money]. So to whom were you addressing your words?" Mr Kalla asked.

Mr Prabowo answered with the extraordinary concession: "I'm not saying there are no thieves in my party".
He added that, what he meant was that all of Indonesia was plagued by "weaknesses" and transactional voting" and that, "the spirit of democracy is damaged by many ways, many people".

For the candidate who presents himself as a decisive corruption fighter backed by a powerful coalition, and who has thundered against "foreign thieves" as the main scapegoat for Indonesia's ills, it was a misstep.

Much of the rest of the debate on food, energy and the environment was taken up with the peculiarly Indonesian obsession of food self-sufficiency.

Both candidates agreed Indonesia should stop importing beef from Australia.
"I want the cattle to be born in Indonesia," Mr Prabowo said.

He insisted the country had "ample cattle" to feed the growing needs of its people, and it was only a matter of improving slaughterhouses, distribution networks and encouraging "change in mindset" away from "neoliberalism" to "a more collective orientation".

Mr Joko said imports could end in five or six years when Indonesia could be self-sufficient.
Indonesia's beef industry remains primitive and under-developed.

The previous Agriculture minister, Suswono, tried to bring about self-sufficiency by 2014 after Australia briefly suspended the live trade over animal welfare concerns.

The result was beef shortages and price hikes. The limited import program was corrupted (and people from Suswono's party jailed), slaughterhouses killed breeding cows and dairy cattle for their meat, which caused a collapse in herd numbers and the resumption of imports from Australia.

On the environment, both candidates agreed that ending deforestation, addressing climate change and balancing the needs of a growing population were of high importance.

A new study recently revealed that Indonesia was now chopping down its primary forest at a faster rate than Brazil's notorious Amazon, and the rate was increasing.