In what is becoming a depressingly regular event with the onset of the rainy season each year, torrential rains over the weekend triggered widespread flooding and traffic gridlock throughout much of Jakarta, including the central business district with its iconic Welcome Monument, which is not among the city’s 78 flood-prone areas.

Bags read: Engineering comparative study, Red Cross comparative study, XYZ study.

Kid: There’s collusion here isn’t there Dad?

Lawmakers: Bye... (document in bag reads Comparative Study)

1st Student: Independence is a golden bridge, you know...

2nd Student: So where’s the bridge?

Writing on dragon reads: Corruption, human rights, judicial mafia, terrorism, racial, religious and ethnic conflict, XYZ.

Man (speaking to President Yudhoyono): Try using the keris of Mpu Gandring Mr!

Fauzi: Former [graft] convicts are prohibited from being government officials.

Signs reads Dignity, Corruption, (Malaysian) Ringgit. Bumper reads National Unity Cabinet Volume 2.

Migrant worker: There’s no need to talk about dignity Mr! We just want to be free from poverty!

Bubble reads Legal Protection, cash box reads Foreign Exchange

Board reads: Indo-clown-ia Cuisine

Kid (speaking to President Yudhoyono): The most appetizing is the terror omelette and crusty terror... and to drink the honey and ginger terror milk, seriously Mr!

In addition to the myriad of social and economic problems that plague the capital, newly elected Jakarta governor and deputy governor Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo (right) and Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama (left) also face what some observers have called the ‘triad of dark forces’ – business interests that have enjoyed decades of rampant unregulated deve