What might a Prabowo Subianto presidency mean for Indonesia?

Indonesian democracy is under threat but it's stronger than a strongman

More than two hundred million Indonesians are going to the polls tomorrow to select their third directly elected president, as well as national and local parliamentarians.

The elections are about much more than the presidency. But Prabowo Subianto is the name on everyone’s lips, after his unofficial alliance with outgoing President Joko Widodo helped him become the overwhelming presidential frontrunner.

As a long-time fan of Indonesia’s amazing elections, I will be watching tomorrow’s vote with excitement and some trepidation. Ahead of the voting, I wrote an essay for Foreign Affairs magazine, considering what a Prabowo presidency might mean for Indonesia’s democracy, governance and foreign policy.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/indonesia/indonesias-democracy-stronger-strongman

Here’s an extract:

In 1985, the CIA pondered who could rule Indonesia after Suharto, the authoritarian president who had reigned since 1967, eventually left the stage. In an internal intelligence assessment, agency analysts identified an energetic army captain, then just 33 years old, who might emerge as a successor. Given that he was a special forces commander with combat experience in East Timor, which Indonesia then occupied, they reckoned that he had a “good reputation for leadership.” He came from an “old and respected family,” they added, and had accelerated his prospects by marrying one of Suharto’s daughters.

Almost 40 years later, Prabowo Subianto’s dream of becoming president of the fourth most populous country in the world finally appears within his grasp. As Indonesians prepare to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for February 14, Prabowo has a strong lead in the polls. Many analysts regard his potential win as a serious threat to Indonesia’s young democracy: in the final years of Suharto’s dictatorship, Prabowo was credibly accused of complicity in major human rights abuses. He is renowned for his short temper and his fiery nationalism, stoking concerns about how he might use the power of the presidency. These fears have been compounded by the unlikely alliance Prabowo struck with the outgoing president, Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi. Prabowo selected Jokowi’s inexperienced 36-year-old son as his running mate after Indonesia’s constitutional court controversially overturned a minimum age limit for presidential and vice-presidential candidates last year.

The election will indeed mark an important moment in Indonesia. Voters are choosing only their third directly elected president, and young people will have an outsize say; more than half of voters are under 40. But Prabowo, if elected, is unlikely to pose an existential threat to the country. Jokowi’s successor will be under enormous pressure to live up to his record. A recent poll by Indikator Politik, a respected Jakarta pollster, found that 80 percent of Indonesians approve of his performance, a rating that most democratic leaders would kill for. And although some checks and balances have been eroded on Jokowi’s watch, Indonesia’s democracy in other ways remains resilient: a vibrant civil society sector, investigative media outlets, and the country’s decentralized system now help restrain a president’s power.

Prabowo’s record is checkered. Yet the most dire narratives from abroad about a possible Prabowo presidency say as much about Western anxieties as they do about Indonesia. They reflect analysts’ tendency to view Indonesia through the lens of imminent catastrophe or “turning point.” (That trope even made it into The Simpsons in 2004, in an episode in which Homer looked up from a copy of The Economist and asked his wife, Marge, “Did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?”) A huge, multiethnic nation whose borders were arbitrarily set by Dutch colonialism, Indonesia presents a broad canvas onto which many different hopes and fears can be projected. Its political developments are variously seen as a sign of democracy’s consolidation, as a harbinger of global democratic backsliding, as a beacon of tolerance or of economic development, or as an example of the dangers posed by rising Islamic extremism or protectionism.

These frames represent some genuine challenges facing Indonesia. But in 25 years, the country has also developed a set of political norms that have shaped Prabowo’s campaign and would likely constrain him if he wins the presidency. It might not resemble the Western vision of a liberal democracy, but the battles to shape the future of its political system will not end after the election.

If Prabowo wins on February 14, he still may not win enough votes to prevent a June runoff. But it is crucial both to understand why Indonesians may voluntarily choose such a figure and to consider what he might do in power. Indonesia is not just a symbol. It is the world’s third most populous democracy, and it is likely to play a critical role in the increasingly fractious U.S.-China rivalry roiling the Indo-Pacific. Indonesian voters’ enthusiasm for Prabowo does not represent a disillusionment with democracy; instead, it reflects their conviction that he will uphold Jokowi’s positive economic legacy—and their implicit faith that their democratic institutions can rein in even a strong-willed president.

Continue reading here:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/indonesia/indonesias-democracy-stronger-strongman

And happy voting to all my Indonesian friends!

Ben