According to all credible quick counts, Prabowo Subianto will be the next president of Indonesia. He and his running mate, President Joko Widodo’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, won the three-way race with a convincing 58% of the votes, easily clearing the 50% threshold required to win in a single round. The losing candidates, former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, may challenge these results in the Constitutional Court, and some protest from civil society groups is expected. But it is unlikely that the outcome will change given the large margin of victory and because there is little evidence to suggest outright vote rigging. Instead, intervention in the process came before the election, when President Widodo (Jokowi) unabashedly mobilised social assistance funds and the bureaucratic apparatus to guarantee a quick victory for his former foe and, most importantly, to put his son in the vice-presidential office.
From strong man to statesman
Prabowo is a relic of Indonesia’s authoritarian past with a blotted human rights record. But he has proved to be a persistently popular political figure. He came within striking distance of the presidency in 2014 and 2019, using both ultranationalist and Islamist appeals. Both times, he managed to secure around 45% of the vote thanks in part to a committed core of supporters. After losing again to Jokowi in 2019, many thought Prabowo had reached the twilight of his political career. But in a surprising move, Jokowi appointed him to the strategic post of defence minister. This arrangement not only neutralised Prabowo as an opposition figure, but also gave the aging strongman a chance to rehabilitate his image.
Presidential desire meets post-presidential ambition
On its own, Prabowo’s image rehabilitation strategy proved effective and gave him a small lead over the other two, much younger candidates, Anies (54) and Ganjar (55). But in order to win, he needed to expand support beyond his loyal base—and it was his former foe that provided the tools to do so. Once heralded as a new hope for democratic Indonesia, over the course of his second term Jokowi had become increasingly authoritarian and concerned with securing post-presidential influence and legacy.
Hardliners are adapting to electoral realities—and state restraints—in mobilising for Anies Baswedan. These areas were flooded with social welfare assistance. To dispense this unplanned aid, government ministers scraped funds from other programmed activities. Shedding any pretence of neutrality, Jokowi himself went to these regions and personally handed out food aid to potential voters.
The campaign for a swift victory involved unprecedented intervention on the part of the outgoing president. First, Jokowi flaunted established norms of neutrality for a sitting Indonesian president and insisted on his right to take sides in the election. He repeatedly and publicly demonstrated his support for Prabowo and his son, sending clear and effective signals to the electorate. This endorsement boosted their lead in the polls. Second, the president used his control over state institutions to drum up support in sympathetic quarters and depress votes for rivals. The main battle grounds were Central and East Java, and the target of this strategy was Ganjar, presidential nominee of PDI-P. It is the party to which Jokowi belongs but with whom he split in order to put Gibran on Prabowo’s ticket.
All credible polls showed that Prabowo and Gibran had the popular support to win the presidency in a two-round race. They ran a far more sophisticated campaign than their rivals, and successfully courted young voters. Backed by most of the country’s major oligarchs and tycoons, their campaign team was awash with funds. They also had explicit endorsements from Indonesia’s largest Muslim mass organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama. Much to the dismay of those concerned about Prabowo’s violent past, it was looking like an unstoppable campaign. But Jokowi’s impatience with the democratic process has undermined one the most durable feature of Indonesia’s democracy: electoral competition.
Over the past decade, numerous scholars and activists have raised serious concerns about democratic regression in Indonesia, which is occurring in line with global trends. The lack of democratic opposition, the dominance of oligarchic power, vote buying, and worsening human rights conditions have contributed to this decline in democratic quality. But there was a general consensus that Indonesia’s elections remained competitive. Partisan behaviour of state officials is observed with some regularity in Indonesian elections. But the centralised nature of intervention in 2024, its scale and the brazenness with which it was done, is unprecedented in Indonesia’s brief democratic history. It is more reminiscent of elections that occur in authoritarian regimes.
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