World Mayor nominee Tri Rismaharini, the Indonesian city’s first female mayor, has proved a great advocate, including for families of victims of the AirAsia crash

Among Indonesia’s colourful new band of reformist mayors only one is liable to break out of their car in frustration, arms waving in hijab and trouser suit, to assume responsibility for directing traffic at a bottleneck.



Elected Surabaya mayor in 2010 after running the city’s parks department, 53-year-old Tri Rismaharini (Risma) has spruced up Indonesia’s sweltering second city of three million on the east coast of Java – and is now in the running for World Mayor Prize 2014.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tri Rismarahini Photograph: Harry Jacques

Risma planted green spaces and cleaned up waterways, while her governance agenda coaxed new life out of Surabaya’s almost fully reclined bureaucrats with simplified permit procedures and an emphasis on discipline. A sign outside her office warns those who would enter, “Honesty is the first step in combatting corruption”.

“Politics should be about providing welfare and the tools for fair treatment in society,” Risma says in her city hall office.

It’s the middle of the rainy season and the heavens suddenly open over Surabaya. Risma hears the first patter of rain on the windows and bounds over to her desk to yell instructions down a radio at flood-prevention officials. Three large monitors relay live footage of their movements at thoroughfares and flood defences.

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The mayor is an even more colourful presence out of her office. In addition to unsnarling traffic, Surabayans like to tell tales of Risma being spotted out on her own picking up litter. But away from her headline-grabbing impromptu appearances, the mayor is quietly working to boost opportunity.

“My priority is education,” says Risma, a qualified architect. “Not just in schools, but mentality – to empower people. Students don’t just need to be smart, they need to be tough.”

In 2011, Risma made education free through secondary school. Education now takes up more than a third of the city’s budget – around £330m in 2012 – but the impact has been profound.

It used to cost Rp 11 million (£575) for a child to attend the final three years of school, which was prohibitively expensive for many of the city’s poorer families. The mayor says a focus this year is expanding vocational training.

For Surabaya last year ended in tragedy after an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore crashed into the Java Sea shortly after take-off with 162 people on board. Risma has won praise for her response leading mass prayers, spending time with families of the victims of the crash and lobbying for an increase in their compensation arrangements.

Indonesian voters favor leaders who project strength, but Risma has also displayed a more vulnerable side.

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Early in 2014 she broke down on a national TV talk show. Being mayor of Surabaya (the name is derived from a portmanteau of “shark” and “crocodile” in Javanese) had been made impossible by obstruction from predatory figures within her own party, she explained through tears. She later told reporters she planned to resign.

But Risma battled through a difficult year, in which Surabaya also made for unenviable international headlines over the state of its zoo, dubbed the “Zoo of Death” after scores of rare animals died. Risma fought to assume responsibility for the zoo from the forestry ministry and reported its management to Indonesia’s anti-corruption authority last year.

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Some of Indonesia’s most capable figures have been Muslim women, but Risma – the first directly elected female mayor in the world’s most-populous Muslim-majority country – made a few waves by firing at least two civil servants last year for polygamy. Then, in July, she shut down Dolly, one of south-east Asia’s largest red-light districts. The mayor’s office provided cash handouts to sex workers to start small businesses, but some working in harm reduction still questioned the pragmatism of dispersing the city’s sex industry to places without established HIV monitoring.

Local journalists report an inability to compromise, but for many now benefitting from free education and healthcare as well as cleaner streets and government accounts, her direct style is her greatest strength.

After the rain stops and our interview ends, a teetering Risma is outside city hall making a meal out of swapping charcoal kitten heels for a pair of wellies. Eventually she clambers into a government car and is whisked off to check on flooded neighborhoods.

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