Jakarta: Indonesia’s presidential candidates debated some of the most pressing issues facing the world’s third-largest democracy: dilapidated infrastructure, struggling farmers, forest fires - and unicorns.
When President Joko Widodo, who is seeking a second term, asked challenger Prabowo Subianto about his policies for supporting Indonesian unicorns a look of bafflement passed across the former general's face.
Wondering aloud, he replied: “What are unicorns? You mean those online things?” Widodo sagely nodded in the affirmative before Subianto explained he supports online businesses.
Social media gleefully seized on Sunday night's exchange as proof of his lack of qualification to be president. In the tech world, a unicorn is a start-up company valued at $1 billion. Indonesia has several of them, and they are transforming areas of the national economy such as transport and shopping.
