Ex-general with dark history reinvents himself for TikTok generation

With upbeat music blaring inside the stadium in Semarang, Indonesia’s presidential election frontrunner, Prabowo Subianto, shuffled his stout, 72-year-old frame across the stage, delighting the thousands of assembled supporters.

Once authoritarian: Indonesia’s Prabowao Subianto, a former army general (left), is on a rebranding drive. Young people with little memory of the past are now imitating his signature dance moves.Credit: Screengrab/Tribun Network

The former general’s inclination to break into dance at the rally in the Central Java capital wasn’t spontaneous.

He has rolled out the moves at other campaign events and clips of them have gone viral on social media, where imitations have been posted.

As Indonesia draws nearer to choosing its next leader on February 14, Subianto’s exploits have not only turned him into a phenomenon on the influential online platform TikTok and, incomprehensibly, made him almost trendy, but also coincided with him building an overwhelming lead in the polls.

In two of five recent surveys, his ticket has backing of nearly 50 per cent, which, if replicated on election day, would secure him a victory by majority, avoiding the need for a run-off between the top two candidates mid-year.

Having the son of outgoing President Joko Widodo as his running mate has allowed him to ride in the slipstream of the leader known as Jokowi, capitalising on the latter’s enduring popularity.

But Subianto has benefited from a very deliberate public makeover, refashioning himself as a loveable, grandfatherly figure rather than the podium-banging firebrand with the dark military history who twice took on Widodo and lost.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (left) and Opposition Leader Prabowo Subianto on the latter’s estate in 2016.Credit: Presidential Palace

“In 2014 he rode into a stadium on horseback in boots and pseudo-military attire and as many people pointed out at the time looked a lot like an Indonesian Mussolini,” said Ian Wilson, an Indonesian politics expert at Murdoch University’s Indo-Pacific Research Centre.

“In 2019, he was on the stage with Islamists, so he was adopting a hard line then. Both of those tactics failed for him so I think it’s a very conspicuous strategy to soften his image, to come across as a kind of benign uncle figure, likeable with a sense of humour etc.”

Subianto hopes it is third time lucky for him in next month’s election.Credit: Bloomberg

With Widodo unable to contest the election and thwart his presidential ambitions due to Indonesia’s two-term limit, this may finally be Subianto’s moment and his team is pulling out all stops.

In Jakarta, enormous billboards covering the entire sides of buildings feature cartoonish pictures of him and vice presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the eldest child of Widodo.

He is a noted animal lover, so Instagram pages for Subianto’s cat have even emerged. An election game plan known as gemoy, meaning cute and adorable, has taken flight.

The ploy, aided by his pairing with the youthful son of his old rival, aims to win over younger voters. About half of the 204 million Indonesians entitled to vote next month are under 40 and their impressions are not all formulated from the past.

The remodelling of Subianto’s image also appears to have been designed to divert attention from his links to the regime of late dictator Suharto, his former father-in-law. For decades, allegations of human rights abuses from his time as a commander of the army’s feared special forces, Kopassus, have followed him.

He has denied accusations he was responsible for killings in Timor-Leste and West Papua, but he was discharged from the military over another episode – abductions of 22 pro-democracy activists in 1998 in the last days of Suharto’s New Order. Thirteen of those who disappeared were never seen again.

Gibran Rakabuming Rakam, the eldest child of President Joko Widodo and mayor of their hometown Solo, is Subianto’s running mate.Credit: Bloomberg

“It is a pitch to try to detach from the past ... 1998 is a big weak spot for him,” Wilson said. “It’s a big vulnerability. Not because he regrets anything that he did. But he has a real sense of humiliation from that time.”

Subianto lived in exile in Jordan after the fall of Suharto and was unable to enter the United States under presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, a ban lifted only after Widodo brought his adversary into the fold by making him defence minister in 2019.

Subianto has moved to fortify himself against any damage he might sustain electorally from the abductions.

In a momentary return to form, he became heated when his human rights record was raised during the first debate last month with the other two presidential candidates, former Jakarta governor and university president Anies Baswedan and ex-Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, the son of a policeman.

Subianto (centre) at last month’s first presidential debate with fellow candidates Ganjar Pranowo (left) and Anies Baswedan.Credit: AP

Opportunism abounds. Subianto has highlighted he has backing even from some Reformasi campaigners who were imprisoned and tortured before the democratic transition a quarter of a century ago.

“I think I’m a staunch defender of human rights,” he said during the debate. “People who were detained, the political detainees whom I was accused of kidnapping, are now in my camp, supporting me. Don’t politicise human rights issues.”

Greg Fealy, an emeritus professor of Indonesian politics at the Australian National University, said Subianto had completely remade himself politically since joining Widodo’s cabinet four years ago.

“He had to adopt a different strategy, he had to stop scaring people, he had to appear responsible as if he could work within the system and he had to present an image of a much more rounded person, rather than trading on his previous military career entirely,” he said.

As for what kind of president he might be, forecasts vary.

President Joko Widodo’s fanatical supporters have mobilised behind the Subianto-Gibran ticket.Credit: Getty

Internationally, his performance as defence minister suggests he would be more assertive than Widodo, who was a reluctant player in the global arena.

From an Australian perspective, he has developed solid relations with ministerial counterparts in Canberra. In the biggest stress point in relations with Indonesia of the past few years – Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines via the AUKUS pact – he has been fairly agreeable from the outset.

“The fact that he has a more critical attitude towards China would be one thing that Australian governments might find welcome,” Fealy added.

Given his authoritarian background, the trajectory a Subianto presidency could take in Indonesia is the subject of more concern.

Analysts have decried a democratic regression during Widodo’s second term, citing red flags such as weaponisation of the once feted Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), and the worry is the foundations have been laid for further erosion.

Subianto was only able to have Gibran, and by extension Widodo, on board due to the intervention of another state institution, the Constitutional Court, which controversially relaxed a rule on the minimum age for presidential and vice presidential aspirants that would have rendered the 36-year-old ineligible.

The case was presided over by Widodo’s brother-in-law, since removed as the court’s chief justice by an ethics panel.

Subianto has been cast as the candidate of continuity, pledging to follow through with Widodo’s legacy-defining relocation of the capital from Jakarta to Borneo, and Fealy believes it is likely he would operate in much the same way as the former furniture salesman.

“All the indications are that one of the things Prabowo has learnt from Jokowi is you can get what you want, you can manipulate the democratic system ... you will achieve what you want to achieve and you won’t have the opprobrium of being the person who was seen as destroying Indonesian democracy or in some dramatic way dismantling it,” he said.

Wilson is not so sure. He cites the long-time political platform of Subianto’s nationalist Gerindra Party to return to the original 1945 Constitution.

That would not only enhance the power of the president but also mean dispensing with direct elections and the two-term limit, paving the way for a leader to rule indefinitely.

Any attempt to blow up the system in such a way would depend on the make-up of the legislature, which voters will also determine on February 14, and the broader appetite for such change.

Wilson predicts democratic decline to gain further pace under a Subianto presidency.

“He’s not committed to democracy. Democracy is a means to an end. He wants to get elected,” he said.

“He believes he has a right to be president. He’s been absolutely relentless in pursuing his obsession ... and this is his last chance.”

Only if he finally wins office will we know whether he really has mellowed. If he has not, how quickly will the endearing veneer come off?

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