Indonesia’s next president could be a wild ride

Indonesian presidential frontrunner Prabowo Subianto is promising continuity, but many fear the former strongman will usher in a new era of unpredictability.

Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, left, with vice-presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is the son of President Joko Widodo. Picture: AFP

Mercurial, urbane, neo-authoritarian, intellectual, volatile … adorable. Prabowo Subianto has been called it all in more than three ­decades of public life.

Now, with less than two weeks to go until some 205 million Indonesians head to the ballot boxes on February 14 for the world’s single biggest one day elections, the 72-year-old strongman is the overwhelming favourite to take on a new epithet – president.

With every credible poll showing the country’s Defence Minister holding a 20-plus point lead on his two presidential rivals – former central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo and former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan – governments around the region, Australia included, are strapping themselves in for a potentially wild ride.

“I think everyone has under­lying levels of anxiety about Prabowo … about what exactly he’s going to be like as president,” says Greg Fealy, an ANU emeritus professor and veteran scholar of Indonesian politics and history.

“I don’t think we should assume he will be a highly volatile president. We would be hoping that the past four years indicate he has found a measure of self-discipline and is thinking long term.

“I am pretty sure he wants to establish himself in history as a great president and you’d hope he would realise there are risks in creating constant turmoil by indulging his temperament.”

Under President Joko Widodo’s steady, populist leadership, Australia’s ties with its largest near neighbour have flourished. A free trade deal is finally done, a landmark defence co-operation treaty is in the works, and the relationship has been elevated to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Defence Minister Richard Marles meets Indonesian military staff officers with Prabowo Subianto, left, last year. Picture: Graham Crouch

Fealy says it is possible that trend would continue under Prabowo; that the hardline nationalist could be stronger on China, better disposed towards AUKUS, and a more decisive ASEAN leader on issues such as Myanmar – all moves that Australia would welcome.

In a foreign policy speech last November, the Western-educated politician acknowledged Indonesia’s “debt of honour” to the US and Australia.

“Australia stood with us in our war of independence,” he said. “That shows the depths of our ­relationship.” Then he added: “However, we also recognise China’s importance in Southeast Asia, and for Indonesia now.”

Prabowo has billed himself as a continuity candidate committed to Jokowi’s infrastructure development agenda, including the new capital city project in Kalimantan.

To underscore his loyalty, he has chosen the outgoing president’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his running mate.

But analysts question whether Prabowo would show the same ­fealty once in power, and whether the world has really seen the last of the old, volatile Prabowo.

How would he react, for instance, if a new president Prabowo were to be greeted during an Australian state visit with street protests or a walkout by Greens senators? Would he get back on his plane and recall the ambassador? Would he brush it off?

“I suspect few people know who the real Prabowo is these days,” says Fealy. “You just have to buckle yourself in. There will be moments you think this is working out well, and other moments where you are on the edge of your seat.”

Election banners plaster Indonesian streets in the lead up to the February 14 elections. Picture: Amanda Hodge

That the presidency is now Prabowo’s to lose – whether he reaches the 51 per cent of votes to win this month or must face a second round vote in June – has astonished millions of Indonesians and international observers who remember his chequered past. But with 55 per cent of Indonesian voters under the age of 40, many are not even aware he has one.

The former special forces commander was discharged from the military for “misinterpreting orders” over the kidnapping and torture of democracy activists in the chaotic lead-up to the 1998 fall of his then-father-in-law President Suharto’s New Order regime. Thirteen were never found.

He was banned from the US over alleged human rights abuses committed by special forces in East Timor during Indonesia’s occupation, though that was lifted once he became Defence Minister.

He has never faced criminal charges and spent his post-military years amassing a rumoured $US135m fortune through plantations and mining before setting up the Gerindra Party in 2008 – a platform he has previously used to advocate for winding back direct elections.

Despite his denials, the rights abuse allegations have dogged the son of a former Sukarno-era economy minister throughout a political career that has included two failed tilts at the presidency, in 2014 and 2019.

He contested the first as a hard-line nationalist, the second by courting conservative Muslims. When he lost that race, too, he called supporters on to the street for protests that turned violent.

Both times he was defeated by Jokowi. Yet it is the wily former furniture manufacturer that Prabowo has to thank for the fact he is in the box seat to govern Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Presidential candidate and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo addresses supporters. Picture: AFP

Jokowi handed him the keys to his political rehabilitation in 2019 by offering him the defence ministry and inviting Gerindra into his “big tent” cabinet in return for parliamentary support for his legislative and development agenda.

Prabowo has used that time to reshape his domestic and international image – even if glimpses of the old, unpredictable strongman have occasionally surfaced.

He continues to warn of the dangers of “foreign influence”, has flagged a military build-up under his presidency and a harder line on foreign trade, warning Indonesia will “not be a nation of coolies”.

He stunned the global defence establishment at Singapore’s annual Shangri-La dialogue last June – and his own cabinet colleagues – by proposing a Ukraine peace plan involving a demilitarised zone and a referendum for people in “disputed” areas to decide their fate.

Still, the divisive figure known for his outbursts and quasi-Islamist populism has largely disappeared from public view, replaced by a more inclusive statesman who promises free milk for school kids and a “friend to all, enemy to none” foreign policy.

Diplomats, politicians and academics who have met him recently describe him as engaged, intellectually curious and well informed.

His banners and social media accounts feature a chubby-cheeked caricature of himself, cat videos and wacky dances.

Incredibly, a number of former student activists kidnapped by his Kopassus unit have even joined his campaign. A recent convert is ­Budiman Sudjatmiko, a former MP who says the battleground has changed from fighting authoritarianism to pursuing economic progress.

“Some people want to see us (anti-Suharto activists) as a beautiful painting in a dusty room,” Sudjatmiko told Tempo Magazine. “But we don’t want to be icons. We want to be a broom” that brings positive change.

The clincher, however, was securing Jokowi’s support for Team Prabowo after 36-year-old Gibran – the current Mayor of Solo in central Java – came on board.

The path was controversially cleared for Gibran by the Constitutional Court last October when it amended election criteria so that candidates under 40 who had held elected positions could run for ­office.

The court’s chief judge Anwar Usman – Jokowi’s brother-in-law – refused to recuse himself in the tight 5-4 decision.

He was later demoted by an ethics board for serious violations, but “the ruling showed the public there were almost no lines that respected the principle of limiting power”, Transparency International said this week after a new Corruption Perception Index showed Indonesia had suffered its steepest decline since 1997.

The decision was allowed to stand and the selection has paid off in spades for Prabowo.

Jakarta student and first-time voter Rembulan, 20, tells Inquirer that she relies on TikTok and ­Instagram for election news and would vote for Prabowo “partly ­because he says he will continue Jokowi’s program”.

“I also think they’re more relatable to young people because of Gibran.”

Team Prabowo campaign secretary Nusron Wahid predicted this week they were on course for “significant victories” in populous East and West Java, and neck-and-neck with Ganjar in his central Java province – which is also Jokowi heartland.

Nusron credited Gibran’s performance on the campaign and in election debates for a bump in support that would help secure a first-round victory.

Most analysts say the race will go to a second vote on June 26, pointing to Prabowo’s figures stagnating at around 47 per cent.

Either way, wrote Indonesia expert Ed Aspinall recently in the East Asia Forum blog, the pairing has put Prabowo, “a man with a deeply authoritarian political past, closer to the presidency”.

Yoes Kenawas, a research fellow at Indonesia’s Atma Jaya University, says the “best case scenario” for a Prabowo presidency is more of the same democratic decline and ongoing pressure on critics experienced under Jokowi.

“Regardless of who wins, there will still be oligarchs behind them. It’s more a question of degrees.”

Once considered a democracy champion, the still hugely popular Jokowi is burning through political capital to engineer a result that secures his legacy and political dynasty. His thinly veiled campaigning for Team Prabowo has convinced millions of Jokowi supporters to follow him in switching allegiances from Ganjar, the affable son of a policeman who is backed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, which sponsored Jokowi’s 10-year presidency. But it has also led to accusations he is mis­using state resources to do so.

In recent weeks he has accompanied Prabowo on “work trips” around the country, announced salary increases for public servants and new welfare programs for millions of households.

Rival presidential candidate Anies Baswedan – running on a change platform with promises to restore anti-corruption powers and review the new capital project – says would-be financial backers have stayed away for fear of retaliation. “Mostly they said ‘kami takut’ (we are afraid), though they don’t clearly say what they’re afraid of,” Anies tells Inquirer.

The 54-year-old academic, running a distant second, worries about electoral “manipulations” and at every event urges supporters to monitor the count after they vote.

Indonesian presidential candidate Anies Baswedan campaigns at Tegallega Square, Bandung, on January 28.

He is campaigning hard to force Prabowo to a second round, calculating the strain of playing nice will prove too much and the frontrunner’s gemoy (adorable) mask will fall away.

A senior figure inside the Ganjar team tells Inquirer they, too, believe a first-round failure would unsettle key Prabowo backers.

“Everyone in the Prabowo camp believes it will be won in one round. If that doesn’t happen that could change the dynamics and supporters could fall away,” the official said.

The two camps are said to be considering joining forces in a second round to keep Prabowo out of office, though insist no deal has been struck. Whether a Prabowo-Gibran partnership would deliver the continuity many Indonesians desire is unclear, though it could be instructive to study the chaos unfolding in The Philippines where another dynastic pairing – the Marcos-Duterte administration – is imploding amid exchanges of ­insults and threats.

As with Prabowo and Gibran, the alliance between Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos jnr and Sara Duterte (daughter of former president Rodrigo) was based on electoral mathematics – that the two clans together would be an unbeatable force. And so it turned out to be. But with the Dutertes accusing President Marcos of failing to share power, the country is on the brink of a political civil war.

Marcus Mietzner, an Indonesia politics expert, says Jokowi “knows the risk of Prabowo deserting him. But putting Gibran next to him as VP was his best shot at formalising the co-operation agreement”.

In the event Prabowo wins, ­Gibran would likely be sidelined, Mietzner says, adding: “Prabowo is certain to try to emancipate himself after some sort of grace period, and open conflicts between the two are likely.”

It is a scenario that Indonesians – and their neighbours – will surely want to avoid.

With Dian Septiari