Dressed in his trademark white shirt and traditional Sundanese headcloth, West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi stood near the barren slopes of Mount Wayang.
Announcing a new initiative to pay hundreds of local farmers to replant its forests and shield the region from flooding, he delivered a line perfectly pitched for the cameras tracking his every step.
“I am a leader who does not want obedience caused by poverty,” he declared on September 26. “I want obedience caused by prosperity.”
It is this...