Reinvented Prabowo takes the lead as he kicks off his third shot
Indonesian defence minister kicks off his third campaign on Wednesday with the son of outgoing president Joko Widodo.
Was it only 10 years ago Indonesia’s third-time presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto was filmed shoving his way through an unruly crowd at Jakarta’s election committee office after registering his interest in the country’s highest office?
Back then the former special forces commander — dismissed from the military amid speculation of human rights abuses — was feared for his temper.
On Wednesday, the now 72-year-old defence minister was the picture of equanimity as he thanked a long list of political allies at Indonesia Stadium in Jakarta before heading to the same election office to toss his hat back in the ring for the February14 election.
Prabowo has reason to be sanguine, with the latest opinion polls showing him 11 percentage points ahead of his closest competitor, former central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo.
Whether his vice-presidential pick Gibran Rakabuming Raka, son of the popular outgoing president Joko Widodo, will increase or erode that lead remains to be seen, though he need only attract some of his father’s heartland Javanese voter base to have served his purpose.
On Wednesday’s stage the 36-year-old Mayor of Solo looked more like Prabowo’s son than a convincing running mate, as he stood awkwardly behind Jokowi’s former presidential rival.
“Today is a good day,” Prabowo declared in a short speech to a packed auditorium before heading to the election office in yet another political caravan destined to hold up the city’s already notorious traffic. “We, Prabowo and Gibran, are asking for blessings from all Indonesian people. We face a point where we can rise to become a great Indonesia, an Indonesia that is free of poverty, free of hunger, free of malnutrition. An Indonesia where the children will grow happy, strong and smart … where its riches are used as much as possible for all Indonesians.”
As the last of three presidential candidates to register his campaign, Team Prabowo’s campaign posters have raised some eyebrows for their Top Gun school of election styling.
Dressed in bomber jackets and flanked by party leaders of their Indonesia Forward Coalition, the veteran and gangly neophyte stare rock-jawed into the camera. The image is just the latest _ from kindly Grandad to cat lover and hard-minded nationalist _ Prabowo has projected to varying constituencies in the lead-up to formally announcing his candidacy.
Where many voters once feared Prabowo, Australian National University emeritus professor Greg Fealy says the veteran politician no longer carries the same electoral baggage.
“I think Prabowo is a different prospect than he was in 2014,” when some Australian academics warned he posed a danger to Indonesia’s nascent democracy with his determination to wind back political reform,” Professor Fealy says.
“In recent years he has strived to convince the public that he has mellowed and would not pose a threat should he become president. He talks about working within the democratic system, not changing it, and his main claim is to continue Jokowi’s policies,”
“But he might have learned from Jokowi that you can roll back democracy by pushing through lots of smaller changes.”
Prabowo’s strongest support is among 18-25 year-olds, most of whom weren’t born when the former son-in-law of veteran president Suharto was accused of complicity in the 1998 kidnapping of student activists and rights abuses in Papua and East Timor — claims he has always denied.
He is also gaining popularity among minority Christian Chinese Indonesians who fear a third presidential candidate, Anies Baswedan, could play the Islam card, as he was accused of doing in the 2017 election for Jakarta governor in which the defeated Christian Chinese incumbent Ahok ended up jailed for blasphemy.
On Tuesday, Anies, a former university rector, sought to dispel those fears. He vowed to run a campaign focused on policies to reduce the economic disparity between Indonesian regions and restore meritocracy _ a hot-button issue after the Constitutional Court amended Indonesia’s presidential election criteria to allow Gibran to run.
Additional reporting: Dian Septiari
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