Indonesia elects a new President – more of the same or back to the past?

Close to 60% of Indonesians voted for Prabowo Subianto as their new President. It’s a surprisingly big win where most expected a close contest, many predicting a runoff election in June. Predicting what happens next is equally fraught. Duncan Graham reports on the morning after.

First, the good news. The asphalt will not turn red. Canberra and Washington warning their citizens to stay inside and beware of riots were misplaced – no evidence-free allegations that the vote had been rigged, no overturned fire-bombed cop cars, no killings.

Instead, hundreds of thousands cheered and danced to celebrate the apparent win of their heroes – disgraced former general Prabowo Subianto, 72,  and his vice-president sidekick Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 36.  

Raka is the eldest son of the present president, Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, and mayor of small-town Solo. He was supposedly recruited to attract the youth vote, but also to keep dad’s infrastructure policies going – particularly the new capital and presidential palace in East Kalimantan (Borneo).

A convincing win

Although final figures are still unavailable, a quick count yesterday night put the pair capturing 58 per cent of the vote, far ahead of the second place (25 per cent) held by Dr Anies Baswedan, a one-time academic and governor of Jakarta,

The third candidate, Ganjar Pranowo, the former governor of Central Java, was almost out of sight with 17 per cent.

So Prabowo is set to take over in October. He’ll be the nation’s eighth leader since the 1945 Revolution when first president Soekarno declared the archipelago a Republic free from the three-century grip of the Dutch. A four-year guerrilla war followed before The Hague realised its colonial era was past.

History lessons not learned

In 1965, Soekarno was overthrown by the military led by General Soeharto, who instigated the genocide of maybe 500,000 real or imagined Communists. More than 32 years of authoritarian rule, known as ‘Orde Baru’ (New Order), followed. In 1998 Soeharto resigned in the face of widespread demands for democracy.

The French Revolution guillotined the ruling royalty to ensure they’d never return. The Indonesian activists who brought down Soeharto at the turn of this century didn’t want bloodshed; they naively assumed the King of the Kleptocrats and his cronies would disappear into quiet retirement tending their grand gardens, all wreathed in shame.

Wrong call: the Soeharto-era just shook its shoulders and garnered the funds to mount a full-on assault on the Palace using the new democracy.

Yesterday’s voters knew little of the past and seemed to care less. It didn’t matter to them that Prabowo, a professional soldier, had been dishonourably discharged for disobeying orders and then fled to exile in Jordan.

Three US presidents banned him from their country for violating human rights in both Indonesia and East Timor. He was also banned from Australia until 2019 when he entered as Defence Minister.

With the help of his businessman dollar billionaire younger brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo started the right-wing Gerakan Indonesia Raya (Gerindra – the Great Indonesia Movement) party as a vehicle for his political career after established parties rejected his approaches.

The cashiered former general lost three times, once as a vice president candidate and twice as president against Jokowi, but has now triumphed.

Indonesian elections: the making of a dynasty and unmaking of democracy?

What happens next?

What sort of leader of 280 million people will he be? Australian Pat Walsh, an advisor to East Timor’s CAVR (Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação), has no doubt.

In a scarifying review, the co-founder of the prestigious Australian magazine Inside Indonesia concluded that Prabowo was not a fit and proper person to be president.

(He) …shared responsibility for the fate of hundreds of civilians who endured crimes … that offends the very essence of civilised humanity included starvation, forced displacement (including of children), rape, torture, killings, imprisonment and forced displacement.

This was not the image seen by voters. Instead, they were presented with a baby-faced ‘gemoy’ (cute) grandpa, though the divorcee’s only son is childless and lives in Europe as a fashion designer. A triumph of jolly cartoons over serious policy and the future of the world’s fourth-largest nation.

The VP role now held by Gibran is dubbed ‘ban serep’ (spare tyre) in Indonesian slang, a powerless ceremonial job.  More than half the voters are millennials or belong to Gen Z, so whether Gibran will lie back and enjoy the role or want to be involved and challenge his arrogant boss is one to watch.

Contrary to the imagery, the hot-tempered authoritarian  Prabowo is not cute, says Professor Tim Lindsey of Melbourne University:

“He has repeatedly said Indonesia’s democratic system is not working and the country should return to its original 1945 Constitution.

This would mean unravelling most of the reforms introduced since Soeharto fell …

“Among other things, Indonesia’s charter of human rights would go, as would the Constitutional Court. The courts would no longer be independent, direct presidential elections would end, the two-term presidential limit would go, and the president could again control the legislature.”

This may be the worst-case scenario. But many Indonesian commentators are at pains to point out that Prabowo is anything but predictable. The Jakarta Post, while decrying what they see as undue influence by outgoing President Jokowi, is hopeful that:

“The next step for Prabowo, especially once he assumes power, will be to prove his critics wrong, that instead of an anti-democratic politician, he can be a consensus builder and a compassionate leader with a stable character, the kind the country needs as it navigates the turbulent world that we live in today.”

After all, now that the presidency is within his grasp he must realize that he could only have got this far through the democratic process.

The Australian Government will have to accept Prabowo and afford him status – that’s international diplomacy.

It also needs Indonesia to help relationships with China, which has been doing big business in Indonesia, particularly with loans and labour for nickel smelters, toll roads and fast rail.

That doesn’t mean the Australian human rights lobby and historians will not rally against the new President. If he does visit Canberra, watch out for the protests now not happening in Jakarta.