Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – 2024 presidential candidate Anies Baswedan said Indonesia has a number of homework in the economic sector that must be completed immediately so that it does not lead to divisions like what happened in the Balkan region, Europe.

This was expressed at the INDEF 100 Economist Workshop which was held together CNBC Indonesia on Wednesday (8/11/2023).

According to him, economic problems such as high inequality can have fatal consequences. He took the example of Balkanization, or regional fragmentation such as the splitting of the Balkan region into several countries.

“Balkanization in the 1990s didn’t start with political problemsbut starting with the economy,” he said.

According to him, there is a very wide economic inequality between regions in the Balkans. This was then taken up by parties with political interests, resulting in Balkanization.

“Economic disparities are allowed to continue and are fed upon. Therefore, it is urgent to resolve these disparities immediately,” he said.

The most obvious example of Balkanization is the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. The collapse of Yugoslavia was preceded by the death of President Josep Broz Tito which caused economic and political instability in the region.

In fact, this problem was difficult to resolve, so Yugoslavia finally broke up into seven countries, namely Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(luc/luc)