Anies Baswedan
Anies Baswedan
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Anies Baswedan

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Anies Baswedan

Anies Rasyid Baswedan (Indonesian pronunciation: [ˌanɪs ˌraʃɪd baˈswedan], born 7 May 1969) is an Indonesian academic, activist, and politician who served as the Governor of Jakarta from 2017 to 2022. A student activist and political analyst before entering public service, he served as the Rector of Paramadina University before being appointed to be Minister of Education and Culture in Joko Widodo administration. He is also the founder of Indonesia Mengajar, a program that selects, trains, and assigns university graduates to serve in a one-year teaching mission across the country. He is the grandson of nationalist, journalist, and freedom fighter Abdurrahman Baswedan, and the cousin of Novel Baswedan. He was a candidate for President of Indonesia in the 2024 election.

Anies Rasyid Baswedan was born on 7 May 1969, in Kuningan, West Java, as the eldest son and child of the three children of Aliyah Rasyid (born 1940), a lecturer at Yogyakarta State University, and Rasyid Baswedan (1934–2013), a vice rector at Islamic University of Indonesia. His father was born in 1934, in Yogyakarta, in and was of Hadhrami-Javanese descent. While his mother, was born in 1940, in Cipicung, and is a Sundanese descent who graduated from Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia in 1965. The couple later met and married in 1968 and lived in Yogyakarta. His paternal grandfather, Abdurrahman Baswedan, was a prominent Arab-Indonesian activist and diplomat who served as a cabinet minister during the Indonesian National Revolution. He had two younger brothers, Ridwan Rasyid (1973–2017), a reform activist, and Abdillah Rasyid Baswedan (1980), a businessman, and a younger sister, Haifa Baswedan (1971–1978). In 1978, when he was vacationing in Jakarta with his family, his sister Haifa died at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport due to being crushed by a cupboard in the bathroom. Baswedan later referred the accident as the lowest point of his life and experienced a major psychological impact due to the fact that he would never see his sister again. Haifa was later buried at Jatinegara Cemetery.

Anies grew up in Yogyakarta, attending SMP Negeri 5 and SMA Negeri 2 Yogyakarta. In 1987, he spent one year as an AFS Intercultural Programs exchange student in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He returned to Indonesia and enrolled at Gadjah Mada University, spending a summer attending Summer Session of Asian Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, and graduating with a degree in business management. As a Fulbright Scholar, he went to receive his M.P.M. in international security and economic policy from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy (where he was a William P. Cole III Fellow), and Ph.D. in political science from Northern Illinois University, where he was a Gerald S. Maryanov Fellow.

On 15 May 2007, he was appointed rector of Paramadina University, a private university in Jakarta. He succeeded Nurcholish Madjid (commonly referred to as Cak Nur), a prominent liberal Muslim intellectual and scholar who had served as rector since the university's founding in 1998. He became the youngest rector of an Indonesian university, at 38. As rector, Anies established Paramadina Fellowship and included anti-corruption education in the core curriculum, first of its kind in the country.

Anies rose to national prominence in 2009 when he initiated the Indonesia Mengajar (Indonesia Teaching) Foundation, a nationwide program that selects, trains, and assigns university graduates to serve in a one-year teaching mission across the country. The program was established in response to the unequal quality of education in Indonesia, particularly in the poor and rural parts of the archipelago. Anies remained in the leadership until 2013 when he resigned to pursue his political career.

Politically, Anies had been an independent during the early years of his career. He moderated the first debate of 2009 presidential election. He also served in several capacities during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration. Baswedan served as the official spokesperson for the so-called "Team of Eight", which was appointed by President Yudhoyono to oversee the infamous public feud between Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and National Police (Polri), which saw two of the commissioners were criminally charged. In December 2011, he also served on a panel to select potential members of the General Elections Commission (KPU).

In 2010, alongside prominent figures like Sultan Hamengkubuwono X of Yogyakarta and former Muhammadiyah chairman, Ahmad Syafi'i Maarif, Anies co-founded Nasdem, a mass organization. He left soon after it was declared a political party led by media mogul, Surya Paloh. Nasdem went on to win legislative seats in the 2014 legislative election, becoming part of the Widodo coalition.

Baswedan joined the Joko Widodo presidential campaign as an official spokesperson. Joko Widodo, a fellow Gadjah Mada University graduate, was said to believe that his presence would gather votes from Indonesian youth voters, a demographic closely affiliated with Anies.

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