He was elected in February but was only inaugurated on Sunday; Indonesia’s new President, Prabowo, has taken over from the jovial and popular Jokowi. Indonesian correspondent, Duncan Graham, reports on what it may mean for Australia.
We know more about our neighbours’ new leader from the US media than from our own. Australian correspondents stationed in the region constantly sought interviews with Prabowo Subianto before he became Indonesia’s eighth president of the world’s fourth most populous nation. We were all snubbed.
Being ignored is an occupational hazard for journos; grow a carapace or switch to PR. But getting to hear and read the views of the new guy next door heading 280 million people is important for all Australians – and vital for our future.
Among the razzamatazz of the switch from Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo to Prabowo on Sunday were fears this marked the Republic heading backwards – to the New Order autocracy of his late father-in-law and second prez Soeharto.
Some have moaned that Anthony Albanese insulted Jakarta by his absence from the hoopla, prioritising a previous engagement with his King. That could be expeditious.
Should the disgraced former general and alleged human rights abuser become a despot, the PM can remind electors he didn’t personally bless the newcomer. Deputy PM Richard Marles was sent as Team B.
Prabowo gave Al Jazeera TV a brittle half-hour sit-down in May. Later, he spoke to Time magazine for “over six hours”, kissing bubs and savouring the reporter’s defence line to the jury:
Prabowo is too complex a character to be distilled as simply the ‘massacre general,’ as he sums up his Western reputation with a resigned eye-roll.
Simply?
Indonesia elects a new President – more of the same or back to the past?
A special relationship?
Favouring the US and Qatar media over Oz reveals Marles’ “no relationship more important” line is not reciprocated.
The Indonesian media is being duplicitous by rewriting their new leader as a ‘retired’ general. That’s a lie. The man was cashiered in 1998 for disobeying orders with his troops ‘disappearing’ student dissidents. Thirteen are still missing. Prabowo was never charged, a point he likes to throw at critics.
Once sacked, he fled to Jordan, only officially returning to Jakarta in 2008 when Soeharto died, his ambitions well bolstered with funds from his younger US dollar billionaire brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo.
What to know about Prabowo? He’s 73, mercurial and a misogynist. Indonesia has a gossip-fuelled tabloid press but has never pictured the former Defence Minister with anyone since he and wife Siti split in 1998 after 15 years. There is no ‘First Lady’.
This is unusual. First President Soekarno set the bar for Javanese manhood as a confirmed philogynist with nine known wives.
Prabowo and Siti’s only child, Didit, is a middle-aged fashion designer living in Europe and whispered to be gay, not a proper public lifestyle in tut-tut Indonesia.
‘Losing my religion?’
Prabowo is no great shakes on religion but goes through the rituals in a nation that has more Muslims than any other state, so leaders must seem pious.
Mum Dora Marie Sigar was a Protestant, dad Soemitro Djojohadikoesoemo a Dutch-educated Javanese Muslim economist who quit the country after falling out with Soekarno.
With his parents in exile, young Prabowo was educated in Britain – and later as a soldier in the US, so he handles English well.
When allegations surfaced of unlawful killings by his troops during spells as a Special Forces Commander in East Timor and West Papua, the West was shocked. He was banned from entering Australia and the US till 2019, something Washington and Canberra don’t want to remember. For a full account, see here.
Prabowo also doesn’t favour academic critics. Like Trump, he’s said some awful things about democracy being past its use-by date, but these may not be his present views as the man is a political chameleon. However, he remains on the hard right.
Opposition. What opposition?
There are eight different parties in the Indonesian House of Representatives, but Prabowo currently faces no threats internally, as the opposition parties have been bought off with coalitions and ministerial goodies as thank-you notes. Human rights activists fear he’ll target them, and help will have to come from outside, causing international friction.
His record on problem-solving is to reload and fire, demanding upset foreigners respect his country’s sovereignty. According to The Jakarta Post, he is also on record saying that “[democracy is] very, very tiring” and “very, very messy and costly”.
Indonesia calls itself the world’s third largest democracy (after India and the US), though now labelled ‘flawed’ by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Endy Bayuni, a former editor of the Jakarta Post, has written:
All Indonesia’s democratic institutions have become virtually dysfunctional with almost all power residing in the hands of the president.
“There is no incentive for Prabowo or any other future president to change this.”
Election promises
Public concerns have been soothed by promises of lunches for schoolkids, a fine idea, as stunting caused by malnutrition is a serious issue, particularly in faraway regions.
The Rp 71 trillion ($6.9B) scheme is due to start next year and for sure will be crippled by corruption as many agencies and private companies will be involved in procurement and supply.
Indonesia ranks 89 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. One estimate reckons it’ll take a century of reform before the Republic sheds the curse, and that’s going to need brave leaders committed to ethics in public life.
Prabowo doesn’t fit that ideal.
The Straits Times claims it’s seen a presentation for foreign investors of Prabowo’s plans to lift growth to eight per cent and make the country self-sufficient in food by clearing vast tracts of jungle in West Papua – a horror plan for Western environmentalists.
That won’t faze Prabowo who has close ties to Moscow and Beijing, visiting both recently, borrowing money and buying goods. That’s worried the White House, hoping he might favour a US alliance.
Wrong. Indonesia’s no foreign pact policy goes back to Soekarno’s years, and there’s little likelihood of change.
We’re close enough to be good mates but can’t be trusted because we polish our star as the region’s US deputy sheriff, the promotion courtesy of past PM John Howard.
We backed the 1999 East Timor referendum and sent in peacemakers. We reckon all good, our triumphs. Prabowo recalls all bad – his nation’s shame. He won’t talk to Oz journos because he fears what we’d ask – and should.
When is a treaty not a treaty? The Marles and Prabowo Canberra love-in.
Duncan Graham has a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He now lives in Indonesia.