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.

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