Gridlock, putrid waterways: is Jakarta Asian Games ready?

Indonesia’s capital has scrambled to prepare for this weekend’s pan-Asian multi-sport event, but organisers insist that whatever is left on the to-do list is minor – critics disagree

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Etiquette team members in Indonesian folk costume at the Asian Games Village. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 7:00am, 18 Aug 2018Updated: 9:48am, 19 Aug 2018

Jakarta is nicknamed the “Big Durian” by its denizens as its varied delights are usually accompanied by a strange smell.

While enjoying all the attractions of an Asian megacity – deliciously spicy street food to capacious luxury malls – visitors to the Indonesian capital can find themselves distracted by the endlessly gridlocked traffic, impassable pavements, fetid waterways and perpetually hazy skies.

Politicians and PR experts have been trying to smooth over some of those rough edges in recent weeks as Jakarta, along with Palembang in Sumatra, prepares to host the 2018 Asian Games. With an eclectic mix of 45 nations taking part in 40 sports – even more than the Olympic Games – the logistics are daunting. Indonesia has never held a sporting event on such a scale.

Just three months after the country’s worst terror attacks in a decade, when suicide bombers killed 13 people in Surabaya, security is also being stepped up, with 100,000 police and soldiers deployed to protect the venues.

Mounted police officers patrol the vicinity of the main stadium of the Asian Games in Jakarta. Photo: Kyodo

Amnesty International also claimed Friday that Indonesian police shot dead 77 people in a crackdown on so-called “petty criminals” in the lead-up to the Asian Games, which the human rights group condemned as an “unnecessary and excessive use of force”.