STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT. President Joko Widodo faces growing pressure to take an unpaid leave of absence following his recent comments about reserving the right to take sides in the 2024 presidential election. Jokowi made headlines last week when, in response to questions from the press, he said that a sitting president was entitled by law to take sides and campaign for the candidate of his or her choosing, provided that no state facilities are used in the process.
The stunt riled election observers, pro-democracy activists and campaigners for certain election tickets, some of them noting that Jokowi was only selectively stating provisions while leaving out other important details, such as needing to take leave when engaging in campaign activities.
Vice Marshal (Ret.) Muhammad Syaugi Alaydrus from the Anies-Muhaimin National Winning Team denied reports that his co-captain Thomas “Tom” Trikasih Lembong was in the United States looking for donors.
A senior lawmaker appealed to more than 1.7 million registered voters living abroad, including those in Japan, to cast their votes instead of abstaining from voting in the 2024 General Elections.
The call for not abstaining from voting, or ” Golput,” was echoed by Kurniasih Mufidayati, a member of Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR) while speaking at the Diaspora Festival in Tokyo.
Voter participation is meaningful for enhancing the country’s national development, Mufidayati, who is again running for a DPR seat with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), stated.
The Executive Director of Parameter Politik Indonesia Adi Prayitno viewed Mahfud Md’s plan to step down from his position as a Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs in a positive light. According to him, public officials ought to step down from office if running for the presidential election to avoid abuse of power and conflict of interest.
Adi also said that other public officials who are participating in the general elections should follow Mahfud’s steps or, at least, take leave. “That is way more elegant and honorable,” Adi said in a brief WhatsApp text.
Joko Widodo has led Indonesia for a nearly a decade pledging to do things differently, but he stands accused of manoeuvring to build his own political dynasty in next month’s presidential vote in a country long known for its nepotistic politics.
The incumbent president is barred from a third term but remains hugely popular, with observers saying he is using his influence to install his sons into prominent political positions, moves that have raised eyebrows in the archipelago nation.
His eldest son was named Indonesia’s youngest-ever vice presidential candidate last year to run with frontrunner and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto.
Indonesia goes to the polls in a little over two weeks with the nation set to elect a leader other than President Jokowi, who is not eligible for re-election. As of the latest election polling, Defense Secretary Prabowo remains in the lead (52.3%) with Anies (former Java governor) and Ganjar (ruling party candidate) trailing in the polls with 21.3% and 19.7%, respectively.
Secretary Prabowo may have bolstered his election bid by teaming up with Gibran Rakabuming, the eldest son of President Jokowi who will run as his candidate for Vice-President.
Siwage Dharma Negara, co-Coordinator for the Indonesia Studies Programme and Coordinator for the Singapore APEC Study Centre at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, in 2023, Indonesia successfully held the ASEAN chairmanship and hosted the FIFA U-17 World Cup, the first FIFA tournament held in Southeast Asia. Indonesia also launched its first high-speed railway ‘Whoosh’ connecting Jakarta and Bandung, with a planned extension to Surabaya.
These highlights add to the popularity of Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo as his term approaches its end in 2024. Jokowi has shown that he is no longer just a ‘petugas partai’ (party officer), a term used by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chair Megawati Sukarnoputri to emphasise that the president should remain loyal to the party.
A great chrome and glass building in the shape of a winged bird rises half-built from the jungles of Borneo. Two years ago, this was a sprawling eucalyptus plantation, but in seven months the structure will be Indonesia’s presidential palace, perched on a hill overlooking the new capital, Nusantara. Evoking the Garuda, a legendary eagle of Indonesian folktales, work crews are scurrying to finish the palace in time to host the nation’s annual independence celebration in August.
The new city taking shape in the surrounding countryside is the brainchild of President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, who launched the audacious $29 billion building project at the start of his second term in 2019. But as housing and infrastructure is added, the city’s future is far from certain, even as some 3,000 civil servants prepare to move to Nusantara later this year. With Jokowi set to step down in October after two terms as president, the project will be out of his hands.
Yayan Hidayat, the Executive Director of The Strategic Research and Consulting Agency (TSRC), told the Kompas news website that pragmatism has taken precedence over ideologies in Indonesian politics…. and suggests a preference for the current state of affairs over uncertainty.
The U.S. style of dividing society into ideologically different groups, such as the Blue Americans and Red Americans, would not happen in a political pragmatist Indonesia. Regardless of winner, the transition to the new government is expected to be smooth.
Much like a soap opera, Indonesian politics in 2023 was full of plot twists. With less than a year until the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for February 2024, political parties and elites engaged in unpredictable maneuvers and established new configurations of political power.
2023 was the year of President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, who has completely transformed from a mere party official into one of Indonesia’s most powerful kingmakers. Indonesian politics is the politics of elites, and this feature will persist throughout 2024. Two major plot twists occurred in 2023.
PPATK recently found that money from overseas had flown into the accounts of 21 unnamed political parties. Totaling $12.4 million (IDR195 billion), 30 percent of the funds are said to have originated from shell companies.
Other countries reportedly housing the shell companies include the United States, Singapore, and the Philippines. The PPATK also said it suspedcts the funds mostly originate from the wildlife trade, as well as from drug trafficking, gambling and illegal mining.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s increasingly visible support for presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto has been likened by observers to how United States presidents formally endorse and even campaign on behalf of their preferred candidates, albeit with an Indonesian twist.
They say Mr Widodo’s obvious preference for Mr Prabowo through his various indirect shows of support in the run-up to the Feb 14 polls is unprecedented in Indonesian politics and could undermine public confidence in the presidency as an institution and over the electoral process going forward.
Iim Halimatusa’diyah, Visiting Fellow in the Regional Social and Cultural Studies Programme of ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Senior Lecturer at Islamic State University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah and Deputy Director for Research at the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) UIN Jakarta, Yoes C. Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Research (IFAR) at Atma Jaya Catholic University and Fikri Fahrul Faiz, lecturer at Islamic State University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta and researcher at the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) UIN Jakarta, political dynasties are prevalent in Indonesia and many new democracies, with regressive effects, but recent research finds that Indonesian university students are averse to political dynasties. Critical and well-informed youth can be agents of change in strengthening democracy.
Democracy lets people choose their political representatives and, in theory, more choice is better than less. Yet, political dynasties—the election of politicians from the same family—remain common in many democratic countries, particularly in new democracies like Indonesia.
While not all political dynasties are predatory, many Indonesian political dynasties have been implicated or convicted in corruption cases. Although dynastic politics is often associated with the older generation and males, young and women politicians also play the game. Regardless of age or gender, their efforts to hold on to power can have regressive effects on democracy.
Andree Surianta, an Australia Awards PhD scholar at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and an Associate Researcher at the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies, Indonesia will elect its new president and vice president in February 2024. It is useful to examine the candidates’ proposed policy agendas to identify how Australia may engage Indonesia’s next administration, especially through the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA).
The three tickets competing for the 2024 Indonesian leadership are Prabowo Subianto–Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Ganjar Pranowo–Mahfud MD, and Anies Rasyid Baswedan–Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar. Each pair has submitted a vision-mission document as part of their candidacy registration.
For months, Indonesia’s three presidential contenders have been brandishing hand signs matching their election registration numbers, but now, a new “four-finger” movement has gone viral.
It signals to voters to choose either candidate No. 1, Anies Baswedan, or No. 3, Ganjar Pranowo. The campaign is the latest initiative to sideline current front-runner and candidate No. 2, Prabowo Subianto, who is seen as having President Jokowi’s backing.
Ganjar Pranowo and former security minister Mohammad Mahfud held a boisterous rock concert and rally taglined “Menang Total”, or “Total Victory”, but a clear win with just 10 days to the Indonesia elections appears all but impossible as the duo has tanked in the polls.
The hope for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) was that Jokowi’s popularity would rub off on Ganjar, and that he would support Ganjar’s campaign – returning the favor to the party that stood by him.
But that has not been the case. Jokowi’s tacit support has instead gone to front runner Prabowo Subianto, who is running with Jokowi’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
Indonesia has more TikTok users than any country except the United States… It is making politics more fun, too. Unlike X (formerly Twitter), which is used by people who take an interest in candidates’ policies, TikTok is reducing the election to memes, songs, and dances, notes Rustika Herlambang, a social-media expert at Indonesia Indicator, a consultancy.
Indonesia’s presidential hopefuls are pulling out all stops to win over voters on social media ahead of the Feb. 14 election.
In the country of 274 million, millennials and Gen Z voters make up 56.5% of the electorate — and campaigning on social media is heating up. One platform in particular has emerged as a key battleground: TikTok.
“In 2019, it was the Instagram election. This time it’s the TikTok election,” says Aryo Seno Bagaskoro, a young spokesperson for the presidential campaign of Ganjar Pranowo, the former governor of Central Java.
Indonesia’s presidential candidates struck a conciliatory note in the latest televised debate as the hotly contested race to lead the world’s third-largest democracy enters its final stages.
Ahead of the Feb. 14 poll, Defense Minister and leading candidate Prabowo Subianto, ex-Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan, and ex-Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo appeared cordial, unlike in previous debates where pointed attacks were leveled against the frontrunner.
Prabowo is running with outgoing President Joko Widodo’s son, a fact that has riled up Indonesians concerned about the incumbent’s perceived political interference and the resurgence of dynastic politics in the young democracy.
Ten days before Indonesians head to the polls and with the prized presidency of the world’s third-largest democracy at stake, the three presidential candidates faced off for the last time in a televised debate on Sunday (Feb 4) as they made pledges to improve health and welfare of voters.
Like the previous four debates, each candidate had a few minutes to outline their vision and ideas, followed by a segment where they answered questions from experts and a subsequent segment where they could give questions to their opponents.
As Indonesia looks toward the presidential election on Feb. 14, the candidates have set ambitious growth targets of up to 8% annually, hoping to vault the Southeast Asian country to advanced-economy status by 2045.
But the latest gross domestic product figures show that Indonesia’s growth rate has stayed around 5%, and that the economy continues to face uncertainty abroad, raising questions about how the next president will reach that lofty goal.
According to the official data released Monday, Indonesia’s GDP grew 5.05% in 2023, down from 5.31% growth the previous year, due to falling commodity prices and weaker external demand. In particular, exports inched up 1.32% last year in value terms, a sharp slowdown from 16.23% growth in 2022, when commodity prices soared amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the post-pandemic economic recovery.
It was Sunday morning in December, but there were hardly any customers stopping by at Mdm Teti Gusyana’s store, one of the few remaining snack shops still standing in Pasar Bengkel, a once bustling town on the eastern coast of Sumatra that has become increasingly deserted.
The town used to be a popular transit hub for travelers passing through the East Trans-Sumatra road, particularly on weekends when many city dwellers sought to escape the hustle and bustle of Indonesia’s third largest city, Medan, some 50km away.
But that all changed almost overnight when a 69km toll road, which bypassed the area, opened in 2019. The town of 4,000 people was hit hard by the sudden decline of travelers, leaving behind rows of shuttered shops and empty restaurants.
Around 100 students marched in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta on Wednesday to protest what they say is political interference by outgoing president, Joko Widodo, in the presidential election to be held on Feb. 14.
While Jokowi, as the president is known, has not explicitly endorsed any of the three candidates in the election, he has made highly publicized appearances with frontrunner Prabowo Subianto, whose running mate is the president’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
When it comes to political contests, Central Java is one of Indonesia’s hottest battlegrounds. With a total of 28.2 million voters this year, the province will contribute about 14 per cent of the total ballots cast nationwide for the presidential elections on Feb 14. It trails only West Java, which has 35.7 million voters registered, and East Java with 31 million voters. In Central Java alone, 77 legislative seats at the national level are up for grabs.
In over two decades as a civil rights activist, Mr Haris Azhar, 48, has been the target of multiple efforts to silence him. It usually begins with government representatives offering money or projects to remain quiet and in their good books. This escalates to online attacks by “buzzers”, people paid to spread social media content involving false narratives to discredit him. The next step is when he is reported to the police and gets charged with criminal offences under laws like the controversial Electronic Information and Transactions Law, which critics say stifles freedom of expression.
Indonesia has initiated stringent measures to ensure no foreign interference mars its 2024 general elections. With a particular spotlight on areas like Karawang, known for significant expatriate populations, the nation has formed a Foreigner Monitoring Team (Tim PORA). The objective is clear and uncompromising: foreign citizens, though entitled to an identity card (e-KTP), do not possess the right to vote.
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto is within sight of a majority (50% +1) on 14 February that would win him the presidency outright. A survey done by Populi Center in late January and early February has Prabowo with 52.5% of voter support, followed by former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan with 22.1% and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo with 16.9%.
Undecided voters are 6.3% while 2.2% refused to give an answer. A first-round victory also requires that the leading candidate secure at least 20% of the vote in 19 of Indonesia’s 38 provinces. A second round would probably involve Baswedan going against Prabowo — a precipitous fall by Pranowo from presumptive favorite earlier this year.
The results, which were released yesterday, are the first to indicate majority support for Prabowo and it could still be among the survey outliers, since others done in December and January showed Prabowo in the 45% — 49% percent range. However, in the latter polls, he already has a majority of the decided voters, and assuming that the undecideds also eventually vote for him in the same proportion, then he would have a majority.
Populi Center is one of the smaller and newer survey organizations in Jakarta, and therefore has less of a track record compared to more established polling firms. However, there are no indications of possible bias due to a connection to existing candidates or parties and there are no egregious issues with its methodology. Other firms may release their own findings in the coming days, and these should also be watched.
The key variable could be youth turnout since these voters only have second-hand knowledge of the Indonesian military’s behavior during the Suharto years and are less likely to be swayed by attacks on his human rights track record, but they could also have a lower turnout than other age groups.
But another interesting development to watch is whether these younger voters skew, as their counterparts did in Malaysia, toward the more conservative candidates like Prabowo, with his appeal to strong leadership and nationalism, and Baswedan, who has in the past tapped devout Islamic voters. A significant portion of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Muslim social organization, appear to be supporting Prabowo.
Prabowo’s association with Widodo has provided a significant boost. It has also apparently created fissures within the Indonesian Democratic Struggle (PDI-P) party, which in turn has weakened the Pranowo campaign, with PDI-P voters flocking to the defense minister. In fact, that Widodo has said he will not explicitly endorse Prabowo may be a sign that their internal polling shows the latter as possibly having the majority already, and therefore the returns from an explicit presidential endorsement may be limited while increasing polarization with non-Prabowo voters.
Conversely, a negative outcome for Prabowo would be to still place first but with a vote tally in the low 40s; this would create a sense that he is vulnerable in the second round, particularly if Baswedan — who has positioned himself as the true opposition — were to be his opponent.
The votes of nahdliyyin – followers of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) – in next week’s election are apparently split based on the political preferences of NU’s current elite. Their main options are to either support the Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD pair or the frontrunners, Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
In this analysis, Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar (Team AMIN) are omitted because the current NU leadership is uneasy with Anies and dislikes Muhaimin, still depicting Muhaimin as a political traitor to the late Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid (d. 2009), Indonesia’s fourth president (1999-2001) and past general chairman of Pengurus Besar NU (PBNU).
Currently, the NU elite seem to be closer to Erick Thohir (Minister for State Owned Enterprises) than to Muhaimin. Last year, Thohir was seen as a potential running-mate for any of the three presidential candidates. Now, Thohir is clearly on the side of Prabowo-Gibran and was appointed as the head of NU’s Institute for Human Resources Development (LAKPESDAM PBNU), an important autonomous body.
Ex-Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan is the dark horse in Indonesia’s Feb. 14 presidential election. While the 54-year-old made a slow start as an independent candidate, his poll numbers are swelling as voting day approaches, thanks to his articulate speeches on the stump and promises of change amid worries of back-sliding on democracy in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. Opinion surveys show he trails well behind frontrunner Prabowo Subianto, an ex-special forces commander, but is neck-and-neck with a third candidate, Ganjar Pranowo.
As a former governor from outside Indonesia’s political and military elite, Ganjar Pranowo is banking on his populist appeal and folksy charm to stay in contention in the Feb. 14 presidential election, where he is struggling to make a mark.
With a humble background and affable, man-of-the-people style strikingly similar to two-term President Joko Widodo, Ganjar was a shoo-in to succeed him, buoyed by the assumed backing of the wildly popular incumbent.
But his political clout is now crumbling after Widodo, better known as Jokowi, betrayed his own party and started tacitly campaigning for rival candidate and former military hard man Prabowo Subianto.
One has pledged “climate justice”, another wants to make Indonesia a “superpower” in biofuels and renewable energy, while the other believes in making remote villages across the vast archipelago energy self-reliant. All three candidates vying for Indonesia’s top job have promised to fight climate change and cut carbon emissions ahead of the country’s presidential and legislative elections on Feb 14. But their vague proposals and lack of ambition have disappointed environmentalists, who want Indonesia’s targets to be raised beyond what sitting president Joko Widodo has put in place.
Indonesia’s three presidential candidates are unified in their muted response to China’s growing clout in Southeast Asia, and in their support of Palestinians. While two are more inward-looking in their foreign policy, with a heavy focus on economic diplomacy, one wants Indonesia to play a greater role on the international stage.
Anti-China rhetoric has barely been heard during the campaign so far, ahead of the presidential vote on Feb. 14. This is in contrast to 2019, when then-opposition candidate Prabowo Subianto used public anti-China sentiment to attack President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as he sought reelection, throwing around allegations, such as that Chinese workers were stealing local jobs.
Now Prabowo, the defense minister and presidential frontrunner backed by Jokowi, has changed his tune, vowing to navigate carefully the growing U.S.-China rivalry in the Indo-Pacific.
Fika Juliana Putri, a 19-year-old shopkeeper in East Jakarta, plans to vote in Indonesia’s presidential election next week for a once-feared former special forces commander. She likes him, she says, because he’s cuddly.
A doe-eyed cartoon version of Gen. Prabowo Subianto — produced using generative AI — is emblazoned on billboards across Indonesia. It’s reproduced on sweatshirts and stickers, and featured prominently on #Prabowo-tagged posts that have some 19 billion views on TikTok.
Prabowo is Indonesia’s defence minister. But on social media, his chubby-cheeked AI avatar makes Korean-style finger hearts and cradles his beloved cat, Bobby, to the delight of Gen Z voters. About half of Indonesia’s 205 million voters are under 40.
On weekdays, production assistant Dandy Febriansyah puts in long hours at a start-up in Jakarta. And on weekends, he is a freelance photographer. All this in a bid to make ends meet and support his ageing mother and brother, who was recently laid off.
For the 24-year-old, job security and better employment prospects are at the forefront of his mind as he mulls over which candidate to vote for in the Feb 14 presidential election.
Alongside choosing a new president, Indonesians will on Feb. 14 also vote for new lawmakers at the national and sub-national levels, in what will be the world’s biggest single-day election.
Indonesia is sometimes called a ‘presidential democracy with parliamentary characteristics’, meaning both the executive and legislative branches play an active role in lawmaking and any legislation needs approval from both branches.
General elections in Indonesia are a battle of political parties and are followed by intense horse-trading that determines ruling and opposition alliances in the country’s key lawmaking body, the lower house of parliament, and its relationship with the president.
Political alliances can shift depending on the outcome of the presidential election, which may go into a second round.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo was once cheered for upholding democracy and associated values in his nation, the world’s third-largest democracy.
But with up to 204 million Indonesians preparing to go to the polls next week to elect a new president, vice president, parliament and local representatives, his legacy is up for question.
While Jokowi, 62, remains popular as he completes his second term, the last he is allowed under the constitution, many observers believe his legacy will be tarnished by excessive intervention into key governmental and political institutions, attempts to build a family dynasty and failures in eradicating corruption.
Made Supriatma, Visiting Fellow in the Indonesia Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, the odds of a one round knockout by frontrunner candidate Prabowo Subianto might be narrowing, with less than a week to go before polling day. Just days to go until Indonesians vote in their presidential and general elections, it appears that the Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar pair (Team AMIN) has decided to concentrate on West Java, Banten, and Jakarta — three provinces where they hope to secure significant votes. Winning a majority of votes in these provinces would suffice for Team AMIN to advance to the run-off against Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka, unless the Ganjar Pranowo campaign receives a tailwind.
