Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest country by population, is a nation on the rise. With an economy projected to become the world’s sixth largest by 2027, this sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands is poised to become an increasingly important international player by virtue of its growing economic heft and geographic proximity to waterways that are vital to trade and security.
Indonesia’s ascendance isn’t a foregone conclusion, however. Long derided as punching below its weight on the world stage, it is facing a host of challenges, from economic growth to climate change, that could derail its rise. If it is to effectively address them, it needs to continue shedding its historical economic protectionism and relative isolationism and embrace a more globally oriented outlook, albeit one with Indonesian characteristics.
Indonesia’s new president, Prabowo Subianto, symbolizes the choice facing his country. On one hand, the strong-headed former general embodies a prominent strand of Indonesian nationalism at the root of the protectionist and inward-looking tendencies evident in its political culture. On the other hand, as defense minister and a presidential candidate, he has softened his image and showcased himself as an active, internationally minded statesman.
These seemingly contradictory tendencies pose a crucial question for Indonesia’s future: Which Prabowo will win out as he assumes office? The “old” Prabowo with a hard-headed authoritarian mentality, the “new” Prabowo with the demeanor of a cuddly grandpa, or an amalgamation of both? In answering this, it is important to look not just at his current policy positions, but also his personality, psychology, and history.
“Old” Prabowo vs. “New” Prabowo
A scion of the Indonesian elite, Prabowo served for 24 years in the Indonesian army, ascending to the rank of lieutenant general. As he rose through the ranks of Kopassus, Indonesia’s special forces command, he did several tours in present-day Timor-Leste, which Indonesia occupied from 1975 to 1999. Prabowo was credibly implicated in human rights violations and war crimes from that period.
His military career reached its apex in 1998, when he was appointed as the commanding officer of Kostrad, the Indonesian army’s strategic reserve. Taking the helm as longtime dictator Suharto’s three-decade reign was entering its final days, Prabowo held the command for just over two months, but he quickly earned himself a level of notoriety that lingers to this day.
As the New Order waned, Prabowo was accused of ordering the unlawful detention and torture of pro-democracy activists – which he later admitted to – and of helping foment riots that led to more than 1,200 deaths. As a CNN report from 2000 put it, he had “marshaled the dark forces at his call – special forces operatives, inner-city gangsters, Muslim radicals – to murder, burn, rape, loot, and sow ethnic hatred in the heart of Jakarta.”
Three months after Suharto’s resignation, Prabowo was discharged and briefly went into exile in Jordan. Out of uniform, he went into business with one of his siblings, building substantive private wealth in the process. Prabowo’s present-day net worth is estimated at nearly $130 million, and he even earned a mention in the 2017 Paradise Papers leak.
In 2009, he made his first appearance on a presidential ticket, standing as Megawati Sukarnoputri’s vice presidential running mate. He subsequently ran for president in 2014 and 2019 against Joko Widodo, who named Prabowo as defense minister following the 2019 election. Prabowo has also chaired Gerindra, one the country’s largest political parties, since 2014.
During Prabowo’s first two presidential campaigns, he willfully cultivated a strongman image, strutting around campaign rallies in a manner reminiscent of Mussolini. His rhetoric was fiery, reflecting a temperamental personality, and he embraced policies that strongly indicated a propensity toward rolling back key democratic reforms and embracing economic protectionism.
He entered his third race for the presidency as a well-known but polarizing figure, especially by Indonesian standards. While he maintained a sturdy base of support and used his role as defense minister to build credibility with previously skeptical constituencies, he still seemed to have a hard electoral ceiling that would prevent him from achieving his greatest ambition.
Thus, Prabowo had to reshuffle the deck. He revamped his public persona, presenting himself to voters as a calmer, seasoned, and at times even silly figure. As the Guardian put it, he rebranded himself as “a cute grandpa with awkward dance moves and a softer side.” In doing so, he successfully courted young voters, few of whom have any memory of his military career.
Crucially, Prabowo leveraged tacit support from Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, to demonstrate to Indonesians that he was a new man. Leveraging the incumbent’s stratospheric favorability ratings, Prabowo framed his candidacy as a de facto extension of Jokowi’s and even went as far as to name Jokowi’s 36-year-old son, Gibran Rakambuming Raka, as his vice presidential running mate. Prabowo was only able to do this because of a controversial, last-minute ruling by Indonesia’s high court that struck down the age threshold of 40 years to stand for president or vice president.
Prabowo’s persona overhaul may have been successful, but was it just a slick marketing campaign? Will he follow through and govern as his recent campaign suggests? Or, will he revert to form and lead his country as a pugnacious, erratic strongman?
His relationship with a figure who resides in a far-flung corner of eastern Indonesia provides some hints as to what the answer might be.
The Curious Case of Eurico Guterres
The name Eurico Guterres may not be familiar to many readers, but he is infamous to those who followed events in the then-province of East Timor during the late 1990s. Born in a small town, Guterres encountered tragedy early in life when his parents were killed by Indonesian forces in 1976. He grew up sympathetic to the Timorese resistance movement but changed his allegiances after being imprisoned by the Indonesians in 1988.
In 1994, Guterres crossed paths with Prabowo. By then a major general, Prabowo advocated for shifting the occupation strategy toward one favoring unconventional warfare (UW), centered around vigilante groups, militias, and the like. He recruited Guterres into Gada Paksi, an organization that was an above-board outfit on paper, but in practice worked to undermine and intimidate the Timorese people.
By 1999, as momentum for Timorese independence was growing, Guterres led Aitarak, a notorious militia that sought to prevent the province’s departure by any means necessary. Guterres cut a menacing figure as he and his forces attempted to intimidate the population into voting in favor of a special autonomy referendum in 1999, promising to turn the country into a “sea of fire” if they did not comply.
The referendum, in which a vote against “special autonomy” was a de facto vote in favor of independence, was overwhelmingly rejected. In response, Guterres and his compatriots, backed by the Indonesian army, carried out a scorched-earth campaign as they departed present-day Timor-Leste. Their efforts failed, and Timor-Leste became an independent nation in 2002 after nearly three years of being administered by the United Nations.
As a Dutch academic later wrote, Guterres “was the ultimate product of Prabowo’s UW” strategy. In 2002, Guterres was convicted of crimes against humanity and began serving a ten-year sentence in 2006, only to have it overturned by Indonesia’s high court in 2008. Despite his crimes – for which he issued an apology in 2007 – he became a political figure of sorts, chairing the National Mandate Party’s branch in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), which includes the western half of Timor, until 2015.
Guterres also remains in the good graces of the Indonesian state, as evidenced by official awards he received from Prabowo in 2020 and Jokowi in 2021, both of which garnered criticism from human rights activists. Additionally, as the chair of the East Timor Fighters Communication Forum (FKPTT), Guterres is the titular head of a politically relevant constituency. Guterres’ association with Prabowo continues to this day, and he even stood as a legislative candidate for Prabowo’s party during this year’s election.
On the surface, Prabowo’s long-standing relationship with Guterres calls the authenticity of his campaign rebrand into question. If he has actually changed, why would he maintain ties with a figure who can undermine his newly cultivated image? Does he feel like he can get away with pandering to hardline nationalists in a part of the country that is out of sight, out of mind for many Indonesians, or is there a more benign explanation?
Alternatively, is Prabowo seeking to prove that he’s a truly changed man and position himself as a great reconciler of sorts? This view was put forth by an Indonesian academic in 2022, who stated that Prabowo’s “personal reconciliation is an effort so that Prabowo’s name does not become a historical obstacle in relations between Indonesia and Timor-Leste.”
Relations between the two countries have come a long way since Timor-Leste regained independence in 2002. Timorese leaders have long embraced reconciliation, including with Prabowo, and Timorese President José Ramos-Horta quickly congratulated Prabowo on his victory.
But trepidation remains in some corners about what Prabowo’s ascent means for future ties. How Prabowo handles the relationship may prove to be a helpful barometer as to whether the “old” or “new” Prabowo eventuates.
Which Prabowo Will Emerge?
As Prabowo embarks on his first 100 days in office, his approach to three key tasks – forming a cabinet, securing support in the legislature, and managing his relationship with the outgoing president – have been instructive and serve as early indicators of whether the “old” or “new” Prabowo is materializing.
When forming a cabinet, Indonesian presidents typically form “rainbow coalitions” that accommodate a wide swathe of interests – an approach Prabowo has taken with his 109-member cabinet. This gives him broad political cover, but also creates an unwieldy governing apparatus in which ministers will have a lot of running room – especially since Prabowo tends to focus on the big picture instead of day-to-day administration – and may run cross-current to their boss’s agenda.
On election day, the coalition of political parties backing Prabowo did not secure enough votes to earn a majority in the House of Representatives (DPR). Through assiduous post-election coalition building efforts, however, he enters with a supermajority support in the DPR, which he may expand even further. While this will help him avoid the political difficulties Jokowi encountered at the start of his presidency, when he was hampered by an opposition majority, it is also cumbersome to accommodate, especially when the parties inevitably start feuding with each other.
Prabowo was the one on the ballot, but the fact is that he rode Jokowi’s coattails to victory. The outgoing president, who is departing with a 75 percent favorability rating, will remain influential and seek to exercise influence from the outside, especially through his vice presidential son. But the incoming president, known for his outsize ego, won’t be subservient to anyone and may come to chafe at his predecessor’s clout. The sands of the Prabowo-Jokowi relationship are shifting; if it deteriorates, Prabowo may catch a nasty political headache that is challenging to remedy.
Furthermore, Prabowo has to navigate myriad domestic constituencies, ranging from directly elected subnational leaders to university student groups to mass Muslim organizations, all of which will constrain his room for maneuver. Some Indonesia watchers worry about a democratic backslide under Prabowo, but these informal checks should help prevent a full tilt into authoritarianism. This was demonstrated as recently as the student-led protests in August, which forced the Jokowi government to back down on contentious electoral law changes.
With that said, a five-year term gives Prabowo plenty of time to pull the levers of the state and consolidate power. As he adjusts to the trappings of Indonesia’s strong presidency, will he revert to type and lead with a command-and-control mindset that brings out the “old” Prabowo and a policy approach that holds Indonesia back? Or lean into the “new” Prabowo that stylistically and substantively accelerates Indonesia’s rise?
Seeking an answer to this question leads one to a distinct choice between putting trust in campaign promises and rhetoric versus emphasizing a candidate’s record as more revealing of how they will act in office. While Prabowo hit some of the right notes as a candidate, his record speaks loudly, and there are plenty of reasons to doubt that someone in their early 70s has really changed. But, if he has, he should be given allowance to prove it.
The answer won’t be a binary one, either. Elements of both the “old” and “new” Prabowo will be on display, and his erratic tendencies may lead to inconsistencies that befuddle outsiders seeking to engage his administration. One thing is for sure, though: Prabowo will be a strong nationalist who puts his country first, and observers would be wise to remember the policy positions that tend to come along with that.
Ultimately, if Indonesia is to continue shedding its historical straitjackets and keep its rise on course, the “new” Prabowo needs to show up more often than the “old” one.