The ex-general’s ascent to the presidency of Southeast Asia’s most populous nation crowns a long and controversial career.
By Victoria Milko
February 15, 2024
Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, centre right, and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the eldest son of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, greet their supporters during their campaign rally at Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024.Credit: AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim, File
A wealthy ex-general with ties to both Indonesia’s popular outgoing president and its dictatorial past looks set to be its next president, after unofficial tallies showed him taking a clear majority in the first round of voting.
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto presented himself as heir to the immensely popular sitting President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, vowing to continue the modernization agenda that’s brought rapid growth and vaunted Indonesia into the ranks of middle-income countries.
“We should not be arrogant. We should not be proud. We should not be euphoric. We still have to be humble. This victory must be a victory for all Indonesian people,” Prabowo said in a speech broadcast on national television from a sports stadium on the night of the election.
But Prabowo will enter office with unresolved questions about the costs of extraction-driven growth for the environment and traditional communities, as well as his own links to torture, disappearances and other human rights abuses in the final years of the brutal Suharto dictatorship, which he served as a lieutenant general.
A former rival of Jokowi who lost two presidential races to him, Prabowo embraced the popular leader to run as his heir, even choosing Jokowi’s son as his running mate, a choice that ran up against constitutional age limits and has activists worried about an emerging political dynasty in the 25-year-old democracy.
Prabowo’s win is not yet official. His two rivals have not yet conceded and the official results could take up to a month to be tabulated, but election night “quick counts” showed him taking over 55 percent of the vote in a three-way race. Those counts, conducted by polling agencies and based on millions of ballots sampled from across the country, have proved accurate in past elections.
Prabowo was born in 1951 to one of Indonesia’s most powerful families, the third of four children. His father, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, was an influential politician, and a minister under Presidents Sukarno and Suharto.
Prabowo’s father first worked for Sukarno, but later turned against him and was forced into exile. Prabowo spent most of his childhood overseas and speaks French, German, English, and Dutch.
The family returned to Indonesia after General Suharto came to power in 1967 following a failed left-wing coup. Suharto brutally dealt with dissenters and was accused of stealing billions of dollars of state funds for himself, family and close associates. Suharto dismissed the allegations even after leaving office in 1998.
Prabowo enrolled in Indonesia’s Military Academy in 1970, graduating in 1974 and serving in the military for nearly three decades. In 1976, Prabowo joined the Indonesian National Army Special Force, called Kopassus, and was commander of a group that operated in what is now East Timor.
Human rights groups have claimed that Prabowo was involved in a series of human rights violations in Timor-Leste in the 1980s and 90s, when Indonesia occupied the now-independent nation. Prabowo has denied those allegations.
Prabowo and other members of Kopassus were banned from traveling to the U.S. for years over the alleged human rights abuses they committed against the people of Timor-Leste. This ban lasted until 2020, when it was effectively lifted so he could visit the U.S. as Indonesia’s defense minister.
In 1983, he married Suharto’s daughter Siti Hediati Hariyadi.
More allegations of human rights abuses led to Prabowo being forced out of the military. He was dishonorably discharged in 1998, after Kopassus soldiers kidnapped and tortured political opponents of Suharto, his then-father-in-law. Of 22 activists kidnapped that year, 13 remain missing. Several of his men were tried and convicted, but Prabowo never faced trial.
He never commented on these accusations, but went into self-imposed exile in Jordan in 1998.
A number of former democracy activists have joined his campaign. Budiman Sudjatmiko, a politician who was a democracy activist in 1998, said that reconciliation is necessary to move forward. Sudjatmiko left the governing Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle to join Prabowo’s campaign team.
Sudjatmiko said that the international focus on Prabowo’s human rights record was overblown. “Developed countries don’t like leaders from developing countries who are brave, firm and strategic,” he said.
Prabowo returned from Jordan in 2008, and helped to found the Gerindra Party. He ran for the presidency twice, losing to Jokowi both times. He refused to acknowledge the results at first, but accepted Jokowi’s offer of the defense minister position in 2019, in a bid for unity.
He has vowed to continue Jokowi’s economic development plans, which capitalized on Indonesia’s abundant nickel, coal, oil and gas reserves and led Southeast Asia’s biggest economy through a decade of rapid growth and modernization that vastly expanded the country’s networks of roads and railways.
That includes the $30 billion project to build a new capital city called Nusantara. A report by a coalition of NGOs claimed that Prabowo’s family would profit from the Nusantara project, thanks to land and mining interests the family holds in East Kalimantan, the site of the new city. A member of the family denied the report’s allegations.
Prabowo and his family also have business ties to Indonesia’s palm oil, coal and gas, mining, agriculture, and fishery industries.
Prabowo bristles at international criticism over human rights and other topics, but he’s expected to keep the country’s pragmatic approach to power politics. Under Jokowi, Indonesia has strengthened defense ties with the U.S. while courting Chinese investment.
“Countries like us, countries as big as us, countries as rich as us, are always envied by other powers,” Prabowo said during his victory speech after the election. “Therefore, we must be united. United and harmonious.”
The former rivals became tacit allies: Indonesian presidents don’t typically endorse candidates, but Prabowo chose Jokowi’s son, 36-year-old Surakarta Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his vice presidential running mate, and Jokowi coyly favored Prabowo over the candidate of his own former party.
Gibran is below the statutory minimum age of 40, but was allowed to run under an exception created by the Constitutional Court — then headed by Jokowi’s brother-in-law — allowing current and former regional governors to run at age 35.
“This is the first time in Indonesian history that a sitting president has a relative who won in a presidential election,” said Yoes Kenawas, a research fellow at Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta. “It could be said that the Jokowi political dynasty has been established at the highest level of Indonesian government.”
Prabowo has also had close ties with hard-line Islamists, whom he used to undermine his opponents.
But for the 2024 election, Prabowo projected a softer image that has resonated with Indonesia’s large youth population, including videos of him dancing on stage and ads showing digital anime-like renderings of him roller-skating through Jakarta’s streets.
“We will be the president and vice president and government for all Indonesian people,” said Prabowo during his victory speech. “I will lead, with Gibran (to) protect and defend all Indonesian people, whatever tribe, whatever ethnic group, whatever race, religion, whatever social background. It will be our responsibility for all Indonesian people to safeguard their interests.”
Strategic campaigning laid foundation for Prabowo’s expected rise as Indonesia president: Experts
Hariz Baharudin
Indonesia Correspondent
UPDATED
FEB 15, 2024
JAKARTA – Wrapping up the Indonesian presidential election in a single round is a feat for defence minister Prabowo Subianto that surpasses expectations, said experts, noting that the electoral gains he made reflect a well-thought-out campaign that spoke to people across the archipelago.
Despite his chequered past, Mr Prabowo has the political experience to govern Indonesia effectively and represent Indonesia on the international stage, added these observers.
They spoke to The Straits Times after unofficial quick count results from the Feb 14 election indicated that Mr Prabowo had won Indonesia’s presidency with nearly 60 per cent of the vote. With more than 205 million Indonesians qualified to vote on Feb 14, the nation is the world’s third-largest democracy.
Mr Prabowo declared victory for himself and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the mayor of Solo and son of President Joko Widodo, in front of thousands of supporters at a packed stadium in Jakarta some hours after polls closed earlier that day.
Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a senior international affairs analyst at policy and business consultancy Solaris Strategies Singapore, said garnering enough votes to avoid a run-off election – which has to be held if no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the votes in the first round – in one of the world’s largest democracies, shows that Mr Prabowo has worked hard to deserve the victory.
The last time Indonesia went to a run-off election was in 2004, when Mr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono went up against Ms Megawati Soekarnoputri after they emerged as the top two among five candidates in the first round.
“Despite the criticisms levelled against him, Prabowo was able to surmount them, prove his critics wrong and defeat his competitors quite resoundingly,” said Dr Mustafa, who is also a visiting professor in international relations at the Islamic University of Indonesia.
“His choice of Gibran as his running mate has proven to be a political master stroke, as it is arguably pivotal in Prabowo winning the Indonesian presidential election.”
The outgoing president, Mr Widodo, who remains very popular among Indonesians, did not officially endorse anyone in the race to succeed him. But his son’s decision to be Mr Prabowo’s running mate is widely presumed as a presidential seal of approval.
This was in spite of the controversy that came with Mr Gibran’s vice-presidential candidacy, as Indonesia’s Constitutional Court issued a special ruling in October 2023 that effectively allowed previously elected regional leaders, like him, to run despite being younger than 40, the minimum age required to contest the election.
Other factors paved the road for the pair to win as well.
Mr Dedi Dinarto, lead Indonesia analyst at public policy advisory firm Global Counsel, highlighted Mr Prabowo’s efforts in the online space.
During the 75-day hustings, Mr Prabowo cultivated for himself a “gemoy” persona, complete with a signature dance. The word is a play on “gemas”, an Indonesian slang term that means cute or adorable, which is widely used by young people.
Experts said that the persona has been used to soften Mr Prabowo’s hardline image as a former military general, who had faced allegations of human rights abuses in the past.
“His rampant social media campaign is a breakthrough in Indonesian electoral politics,” said Mr Dedi.
Mr Beltsazar Krisetya from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said Mr Prabowo did a successful “180-degree re-imagining” of his image.
“The middle class especially had certain preconceptions of Mr Prabowo’s image, what with his controversial history of human rights violations... This notion was challenged and totally reworked by the portrayal we saw,” said Mr Beltsazar, the principal researcher at CSIS’ Safer Internet Lab.
He also pointed out how the Prabowo-Gibran team made promises of free food, milk for children and support for pregnant women, which all hit home for Indonesia’s lower class, which makes up the majority of voters.
As at Feb 15, the votes are still being counted by the General Elections Commission (KPU). Under Indonesia elections law, the vote-counting process may take up to 35 days to be completed, given the large number of eligible voters and the vast territory. The KPU has said official results are expected to be released by March 20 at the latest.
Official results are not expected to differ significantly from the quick count tallies.
Mr Prabowo’s competitors, former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo and former governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan, have not yet conceded defeat, and their campaign teams have urged supporters to wait for official results.
But regardless of Mr Prabowo’s path to the presidency, there is a consensus that he has the experience to run Indonesia well, having been in politics since 2004 and serving as the defence minister since 2019.
“Prabowo has the requisite political experience to govern Indonesia effectively and the diplomatic wisdom to navigate Indonesia masterfully on the international stage,” said Dr Mustafa.
Dr Irman G. Lanti from the Padjadjaran University in Indonesia pointed out how Mr Prabowo has a lot of international exposure, even more so than Mr Widodo now.
In his ministerial role, Mr Prabowo – who speaks fluent English, Dutch, French and German – has regularly interacted with military and world leaders. In November 2023, Singapore conferred on Mr Prabowo its top military award, a sign that he has contributed significantly to close and longstanding bilateral defence relations between the two neighbours.
“He will represent the country naturally on the international stage,” noted Dr Irman, who is also a visiting fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
But Mr Prabowo’s presidency is unlikely to be totally smooth sailing despite the first-round victory, said Dr Irman, pointing to the controversial issues that arose during campaigning that he will have to deal with.
This includes fierce opposition from university campuses and civil society activists, who have openly criticised him and Mr Widodo for supposedly colluding with each other.
Two days before the election, hundreds of Indonesian students and activists staged protests over what they saw as an abuse of power by Mr Widodo to sway voters towards Mr Prabowo.
On Jan 29, Mr Widodo was seen eating bakso (meatball soup) at a roadside stall with Mr Prabowo. They had met for dinner in Jakarta on Jan 5 as well – another meeting that was publicised.
Critics also said Mr Widodo had been deploying populist programmes purportedly in support of Mr Prabowo’s presidential bid. These range from El Nino cash aid for low-income households to the first pay rise for civil servants in five years.
“Even if he is able to manage opposition from the other parties… he would still face the issue of lacking legitimacy from the academic and progressive communities,” said Dr Irman.
There is also the looming issue of how Mr Prabowo and Mr Gibran, will step out of Mr Widodo’s shadow and make their own mark in Indonesia.
While Mr Prabowo did not receive any explicit endorsement from Mr Widodo, he is enjoying a spike in popularity from his association with his old political foe-turned-friend, better known as Jokowi, whose leadership approval ratings exceed 70 per cent even as the President reaches the end of his term.
Mr Prabowo has repeatedly underscored his commitment to continue Mr Widodo’s ambitious economic development and legacy infrastructure projects, perhaps the most notable one of all being the move of the administrative capital from Jakarta to Nusantara in East Kalimantan.
Dr Mustafa said: “There is a need for Prabowo to carve his own imprint that sets him apart from Jokowi, and for Gibran to carve his own identity going beyond the characterisation that he is Jokowi’s son.”
Hariz Baharudin
Indonesia Correspondent
Mr Prabowo Subianto (left) and his running mate, Mr Gibran Rakabuming Raka, greeting supporters at a watch party in Jakarta on Feb 14.
ST PHOTO: ARIFFIN JAMAR
UPDATED
FEB 15, 2024
JAKARTA – Wrapping up the Indonesian presidential election in a single round is a feat for defence minister Prabowo Subianto that surpasses expectations, said experts, noting that the electoral gains he made reflect a well-thought-out campaign that spoke to people across the archipelago.
Despite his chequered past, Mr Prabowo has the political experience to govern Indonesia effectively and represent Indonesia on the international stage, added these observers.
They spoke to The Straits Times after unofficial quick count results from the Feb 14 election indicated that Mr Prabowo had won Indonesia’s presidency with nearly 60 per cent of the vote. With more than 205 million Indonesians qualified to vote on Feb 14, the nation is the world’s third-largest democracy.
Mr Prabowo declared victory for himself and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the mayor of Solo and son of President Joko Widodo, in front of thousands of supporters at a packed stadium in Jakarta some hours after polls closed earlier that day.
Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a senior international affairs analyst at policy and business consultancy Solaris Strategies Singapore, said garnering enough votes to avoid a run-off election – which has to be held if no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the votes in the first round – in one of the world’s largest democracies, shows that Mr Prabowo has worked hard to deserve the victory.
The last time Indonesia went to a run-off election was in 2004, when Mr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono went up against Ms Megawati Soekarnoputri after they emerged as the top two among five candidates in the first round.
“Despite the criticisms levelled against him, Prabowo was able to surmount them, prove his critics wrong and defeat his competitors quite resoundingly,” said Dr Mustafa, who is also a visiting professor in international relations at the Islamic University of Indonesia.
“His choice of Gibran as his running mate has proven to be a political master stroke, as it is arguably pivotal in Prabowo winning the Indonesian presidential election.”
The outgoing president, Mr Widodo, who remains very popular among Indonesians, did not officially endorse anyone in the race to succeed him. But his son’s decision to be Mr Prabowo’s running mate is widely presumed as a presidential seal of approval.
This was in spite of the controversy that came with Mr Gibran’s vice-presidential candidacy, as Indonesia’s Constitutional Court issued a special ruling in October 2023 that effectively allowed previously elected regional leaders, like him, to run despite being younger than 40, the minimum age required to contest the election.
Other factors paved the road for the pair to win as well.
Mr Dedi Dinarto, lead Indonesia analyst at public policy advisory firm Global Counsel, highlighted Mr Prabowo’s efforts in the online space.
During the 75-day hustings, Mr Prabowo cultivated for himself a “gemoy” persona, complete with a signature dance. The word is a play on “gemas”, an Indonesian slang term that means cute or adorable, which is widely used by young people.
Experts said that the persona has been used to soften Mr Prabowo’s hardline image as a former military general, who had faced allegations of human rights abuses in the past.
“His rampant social media campaign is a breakthrough in Indonesian electoral politics,” said Mr Dedi.
Mr Beltsazar Krisetya from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said Mr Prabowo did a successful “180-degree re-imagining” of his image.
“The middle class especially had certain preconceptions of Mr Prabowo’s image, what with his controversial history of human rights violations... This notion was challenged and totally reworked by the portrayal we saw,” said Mr Beltsazar, the principal researcher at CSIS’ Safer Internet Lab.
He also pointed out how the Prabowo-Gibran team made promises of free food, milk for children and support for pregnant women, which all hit home for Indonesia’s lower class, which makes up the majority of voters.
As at Feb 15, the votes are still being counted by the General Elections Commission (KPU). Under Indonesia elections law, the vote-counting process may take up to 35 days to be completed, given the large number of eligible voters and the vast territory. The KPU has said official results are expected to be released by March 20 at the latest.
Official results are not expected to differ significantly from the quick count tallies.
Mr Prabowo’s competitors, former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo and former governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan, have not yet conceded defeat, and their campaign teams have urged supporters to wait for official results.
But regardless of Mr Prabowo’s path to the presidency, there is a consensus that he has the experience to run Indonesia well, having been in politics since 2004 and serving as the defence minister since 2019.
“Prabowo has the requisite political experience to govern Indonesia effectively and the diplomatic wisdom to navigate Indonesia masterfully on the international stage,” said Dr Mustafa.
Dr Irman G. Lanti from the Padjadjaran University in Indonesia pointed out how Mr Prabowo has a lot of international exposure, even more so than Mr Widodo now.
In his ministerial role, Mr Prabowo – who speaks fluent English, Dutch, French and German – has regularly interacted with military and world leaders. In November 2023, Singapore conferred on Mr Prabowo its top military award, a sign that he has contributed significantly to close and longstanding bilateral defence relations between the two neighbours.
“He will represent the country naturally on the international stage,” noted Dr Irman, who is also a visiting fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
But Mr Prabowo’s presidency is unlikely to be totally smooth sailing despite the first-round victory, said Dr Irman, pointing to the controversial issues that arose during campaigning that he will have to deal with.
This includes fierce opposition from university campuses and civil society activists, who have openly criticised him and Mr Widodo for supposedly colluding with each other.
Two days before the election, hundreds of Indonesian students and activists staged protests over what they saw as an abuse of power by Mr Widodo to sway voters towards Mr Prabowo.
On Jan 29, Mr Widodo was seen eating bakso (meatball soup) at a roadside stall with Mr Prabowo. They had met for dinner in Jakarta on Jan 5 as well – another meeting that was publicised.
Critics also said Mr Widodo had been deploying populist programmes purportedly in support of Mr Prabowo’s presidential bid. These range from El Nino cash aid for low-income households to the first pay rise for civil servants in five years.
“Even if he is able to manage opposition from the other parties… he would still face the issue of lacking legitimacy from the academic and progressive communities,” said Dr Irman.
There is also the looming issue of how Mr Prabowo and Mr Gibran, will step out of Mr Widodo’s shadow and make their own mark in Indonesia.
While Mr Prabowo did not receive any explicit endorsement from Mr Widodo, he is enjoying a spike in popularity from his association with his old political foe-turned-friend, better known as Jokowi, whose leadership approval ratings exceed 70 per cent even as the President reaches the end of his term.
Mr Prabowo has repeatedly underscored his commitment to continue Mr Widodo’s ambitious economic development and legacy infrastructure projects, perhaps the most notable one of all being the move of the administrative capital from Jakarta to Nusantara in East Kalimantan.
Dr Mustafa said: “There is a need for Prabowo to carve his own imprint that sets him apart from Jokowi, and for Gibran to carve his own identity going beyond the characterisation that he is Jokowi’s son.”
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