The current Defense Minister, Prabowo Subianto, is on track to become Indonesia's next president, according to most opinion polls. The election of Prabowo, which received the tacit support of the current head of state, Joko Widodo, does not come as a surprise, but it raises doubts about the solidity of the democratic system in the largest Islamic country in the world.
The former general of Indonesian forces serving the Suharto regime emerged on Wednesday with a very strong lead of four polling companies, giving him, on average, 58% of the vote. The official count in Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands and 270 million people, is slow and expected to take several weeks to complete, so opinion polls have been used as a quick and effective way to predict the final result since direct voting. It was an introduction.
Opinion polls indicate that Prabowo had no difficulty obtaining more than 50% of the votes (and at least 20% in each province), which avoided a second round of elections that will not be held until June. His main opponents – former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java Governor Jangar Pranoo – have remained very distant from the former general.
“This victory should be a victory for all Indonesians,” Prabowo said as soon as the poll results came in, immediately declaring a victory, albeit a virtual one. “We must not be arrogant, we must not be proud, we must not be euphoric, we must remain humble,” declared the former general.
Along with him in the speech was the “vice” candidate, Gebran Rakabuming Raka, the son of the current president, who is considered instrumental in Prabowo’s victory. Widodo chose not to publicly support any of the candidates to succeed him, including his own party, but his critics say he favored Prabowo, appearing alongside him in several public initiatives.
Gebran's candidacy alongside Prabowo was not announced until after a decision was issued by the President of the Constitutional Court allowing an exception to be opened allowing the president's son to run, even though he is less than 40 years old. The presiding judge is Widodo's son-in-law and was removed from his position by the Ethics Committee.
This kind of privileging and promotion of family relationships in politics has led many observers to fear the decline of Indonesian democracy, nearly three decades after the end of Suharto's dictatorship. “In the past, the deterioration of democracy in Indonesia was linked to the suppression of civil liberties, but with the decline in the quality of elections and the interference of those in power, I think we are now in a bad situation,” he said. Citing the Catholic Atma Jaya scholar, Yois C. Kinawas The New York Times.
The victory of Prabowo (72 years old) revives the ghosts of Suharto's dictatorship and its abuses. The new Indonesian president – already defeated twice by Widodo – was a general in charge of the Indonesian special forces, Kopassus, during part of Suharto's term, who became his son-in-law.
He is accused of involvement in the kidnapping of 22 political activists opposed to the dictatorship in 1998. To this day, 13 of them remain missing and their families continue to organize vigils in front of the presidential palace to demand answers. Prabowo is also suspected of participating in human rights violations in East Timor and Papua.
Because of these allegations, Prabowo was banned from entering the United States for several years. In a recent interview, former US ambassador to Jakarta, Robert Gelbard, described Prabowo as “someone who is perhaps the biggest human rights violator of contemporary times in the Indonesian military.”
The former general's record appears to have had little impact after a campaign in which Prabowo knew how to re-present himself as a candidate to continue Widodo, promising to keep Indonesia on the path of economic growth. More significant was the way his campaign team knew how to capture the votes of younger people – a key segment of the Indonesian electorate – through constant use of social media, where Prabowo was presented more as a friendly grandfather than a former grandfather. The army is responsible for the kidnappings.
