Tony Blair Meets With Jokowi

Jakarta (Antara) - Visiting former British prime minister Tony Blair met with president elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo at the latter's official residence of the Jakarta governor Thursday. Talks between the two were around Jokowi's preparations ahead of his inauguration as Indonesian president on October 20 to replace President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono following his victory in the presidential election on July 9. "In the meeting, I asked him about how he had prepared himself when he first took office and in response he has told me a lot," Jokowi said after the meeting. With regard to the same question he said Blair had also given him a number of pointers including on four important things that a leader must do when taking over the government, he said. "There are four important things that must be done including appointing a policy adviser, strategy adviser, communication adviser and delivery adviser. That is the key," he said. Jokowi said Blair's visit to Indonesia was related to education. "His visit here is related with education. He has extended donations to several schools here. That is all he did here," he said. He said he had nothing special to discuss with Blair during the meeting in the afternoon. "There was no talk about investment and other things relating to economy and others. We just discussed about education and a little about my preparations," he said. Before meeting Jokowi, Tony Blair had met with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the latter's office earlier that day. (*)