policy areas and efforts toward military reform. By September, there was also a significant opportunity to replace Gatot after public calls for Jokowi to evaluate his position for leaking classified information regarding the weapons importation debacle. The reason why Jokowi did not replace Gatot at anyone of these opportunities was probably due to Gatot’s popularity, and that all this controversy occurred before the political picture for the upcoming regional elections was clear.

Gatot’s replacement with an Air Force Chief Marshal was also not about restoring the post-1999 tradition of leadership rotation amongst the three services—Army, Navy, Air Force—for the top commander position. Jokowi had no problem being the first democratically elected president to break this tradition. Gatot’s original appointment, which followed the appointment of former army general Ryamizard assenior service Chiefs of Staff, General Mulyono (Army) and Admiral Ade Supandi (Navy), both graduates of the Command and Staff College before Hadi, making him envied not only by the other more senior officers from competing services, but also by the more senior and experienced officers within his own service.

The upcoming regional elections in mid-2018 will thus be an important test for Hadi, as these elections will involve recently retired officers from competing services running as political candidates. The most influential of these will be Lieutenant General Edy Rahmayadi, the soon-to-retire commander of Kostrad, the Army’s prestigious strategic reserve. Edy will be running for the governorship of North Sumatra with the support of three political parties—the nationalist Gerindra, and the Islamic PKS and PAN—the first two of which