Platypus, kangaroo and echidna aside, one of Australia’s curious characteristics is an ability among its human population to almost completely ignore our location on the planet.
As I write, the national broadsheet newspaper is using a bold front-page headline to rebuke the Australian government’s “Abandonment of Israel.” Much of the paper’s news and commentary is concerned with conflict in the Middle East or with the welfare of Jewish people in Australia, who are said to be at risk of intensified anti-Semitism. The Sydney Morning Herald adds to the mix news of the bombardment of Yemen by the United States and Britain, though its reporting lacks the sense of duty to Israel demanded by its Murdoch competitor. Both newspapers spend much of the leftover space on impressions of the US election, local court cases and the status of Qantas services. As they often do.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, is a disparate archipelago of 17,000 islands, its population of 280 million spread among 1340 ethnic groups. Ten days from now — on 20 October — it will inaugurate a new president. After three unsuccessful attempts, Prabowo Subianto won this year’s election and, amid much apprehension, will finally take his place in the Merdeka Palace.
These events have largely been ignored in the Australian media and, presumably, by many among our national elites. Yet Indonesia is our closest neighbour, the largest member of ASEAN and among a handful of countries expected to sustain significant economic and social progress in the years ahead.
Prabowo’s election should be top of mind in Australia. The president-elect comes with a record and characteristics that raise comparisons with former President Suharto, whose regime fell apart amid the Asian financial crisis of 1998 and was followed by a period of democratic reform — reformasi — associated with considerable economic progress. Prabowo, who was married to Suharto’s daughter, is accused of having overseen the disappearance of student protestors, among other alleged crimes during his military career. Although he trained in the United States, he was banned from travel there in 2000 over his human rights record. (The ban was lifted in 2020 after he became defence minister.)
For all those reasons, Prabowo’s approach to government attracts much speculation and anxiety. Yet the actions of his predecessor — a man widely hailed as emblematic of Indonesia’s democratic progress — also demand attention.
Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, came to the presidency as an outsider in Indonesia’s deeply mistrusted political culture. In an environment of money politics, dynastic expectations and intense coalition-wrangling, this Surakarta furniture-maker became a local mayor, a governor of Jakarta and, finally, a two-term president from 2014. Although he was nominated for election by the nation’s largest parliamentary party, the PDI-P, he positioned himself — especially in the public mind — as an independent. His approval rating after two terms remains a remarkable 75 per cent. His presidency was, in critical ways, a turning point.
One way to examine Indonesia’s political landscape is through the history of its political parties, only one of which — Golkar — functioned before 1998. Golkar was formed in 1964 by Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, as a counterweight to the Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI. Sukarno’s Joint Secretariat of Functional Groups (Sekber Golkar) included representatives of social-function NGOs covering teachers, police, military, artists and others. After the dissolution of the PKI, Golkar became the political grouping — and electioneering vehicle — of Suharto’s New Order government. Five of the six Golkar chairmen during the New Order era were military officers.
In the period after Suharto’s resignation in 1998 political tensions and personal ambitions split Golkar and reduced its influence, though it often maintained the strongest convening power in parliamentary coalitions. PDI-P, which had been suppressed under Suharto, was meanwhile building a strong base under the leadership of Sukarno’s daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and has held the largest bloc of seats in the parliament in recent elections. But Megawati herself proved an ineffective candidate and, faced with a similarly unappealing option from within her own family, reluctantly backed Jokowi in 2014.
Three Islamist parties also emerged from 1998, each aligned with large religious organisations. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a “reformist” general who helped dislodge Suharto from office, formed the Democratic Party in 2001 (and won the presidency twice from 2004). Prabowo created Gerindra as a personal vehicle after he ran last in Golkar’s presidential candidate selection in 2008. And media owner Surya Paloh, after forty years with Golkar, formed NasDem in 2011. NasDem backed Jokowi in both elections in which he was successful.
Jokowi’s deft political tactics were on display early in his first term, despite Megawati’s effort to impose her authority by referring to him at one point as a party “functionary.” (An actual PDI-P functionary had called unsuccessfully for his impeachment.) He managed to bring Golkar from opposition into government, balancing a coalition that at one stage also included NasDem, and thus diluting Megawati’s dominant influence. Then, in his second term, he took the dramatic step of bringing his electoral opponent, Prabowo, into government as defence minister. He now had a coalition that allowed him independent authority.
Leading up to the 2024 election, Jokowi’s reputation for reinforcing democratic principles began a descent that troubled many Indonesians at least as much as the election of Prabowo would. Early in the term, Jokowi’s confidantes openly speculated that he might seek to override the constitution’s two-term limit on the presidency. Forced to quash that suggestion, he then announced that he intended to be active in the coming election. Initially, he appeared to be trying to become PDI-P kingmaker by intruding himself into its presidential nomination, but that idea was firmly beaten back by Megawati.
At almost the last minute, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court controversially overrode the legal age limit for candidacy, allowing Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run on a presidential ticket. (The court’s majority decision relied on the vote of the chief justice, who was Jokowi’s brother-in-law.) Just ahead of the close of nominations, Gibran was announced as Prabowo’s running mate. At a stroke, Prabowo had acquired much of Jokowi’s immense popular support.
Indonesia’s reformasi-era institutions were built around the removal of the military from civil roles; a popular and effective anti-corruption agency, the KPK; and a Constitutional Court of high integrity. As the end of his presidency approached, Jokowi introduced legislation enabling “dual” roles for the military. He had politicised and weaponised the KPK such that corruption allegations were said to have been used to threaten local officials during the election and, more recently, to force out the Golkar leadership to enable a Jokowi associate to take control.
Jokowi’s evident success in bending the Constitutional Court to his will led to the departure of the chief justice and may have prompted the court to rule out measures that would have allowed another of his sons to run at a local level. (The court also blocked measures limiting candidate nominations in provincial races.) His attempted overriding of the court provoked extensive protests, and parliament allowed the legislation to lapse.
On its face, the Jokowi–Prabowo alliance now dominates Indonesian politics in ways that go beyond the numbers. Given the personalities involved, many are questioning the relationship’s durability, but its combination of self-interest and muscle currently has few restraints.
This is where ANU Indonesia specialist Marcus Mietzner’s new book about presidential power and its limits in Indonesia, Coalitions Presidents Make, is truly valuable. Mietzner shows that money plays a big role, both in the transactional behaviour in the parliament and in the interplay between political leaders and Indonesia’s wealthy interests. Detailed and carefully explained, his clear, confident narrative brings coherence to what might otherwise be impenetrable dealings.
After putting the political environment into context, Mietzner works through the layers of Indonesian politics. He shows the surprising fluidity of parliamentary power, fuelled by money, personal interests and the “oligarchic” influence of wealthy families whose patronage feeds heavily cashed-up election campaigns. (He also notes that the preponderant wealth is held by ethnic Chinese families, whose insecure status and national loyalty is a popular target.)
Religion has acquired greater influence in Indonesian politics since the end of the relatively secular New Order regime, largely because Indonesians have become more pious. In building his broad political coalition, Jokowi was forced to deal with the two large Islamic organisations in a variety of ways. He needed their support to suppress the more extreme groups that had undermined Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, his successor (and former deputy) as Jakarta governor. He had solid support, notably in East Java, from the largest of those organisations, Nahdlatul Ulama, in winning the 2019 election.
Mietzner acknowledges the diminution of democratic institutions under Jokowi but also explains the dynamics that appear to work against excessive authoritarianism. He refers to the “incessant anxiety” of Indonesian presidents over an impeachment of the kind that brought down Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia’s second post-Suharto president. Even Prabowo, he says, is unlikely to follow through on his “burn down the system” rhetoric. But the stability that comes with effective coalition-making has its own downside: the stagnation that flows from appeasing the wielders of Indonesia’s veto powers. This is no small matter.
Prabowo’s primary narrative during his successful election campaign was about “continuity” — that he alone would maintain Jokowi’s approach. This has been one of the messages plastered over the presidential transition. Yet Prabowo has made promises that imply a large expansion of the fiscal deficit and seem to discount the technocratic discipline that has been relatively constant in Indonesia, certainly since 1998.
Both Jokowi and Prabowo have painted a picture of growing prosperity, with high levels of economic growth and overall welfare. Certainly the recent years of “resource nationalism” have seen big increases in exports, notably of coal and nickel, especially to China; but the Chinese economy is waning. At home, the expectations of Indonesians may be tested by the fact that the steady growth of the middle class reversed under Jokowi; in fact the officially reported middle-class population has fallen by about ten million (to about forty-eight million) since 2019.
This is an ideal time to come to grips with Indonesia’s social and political environment, and Marcus Mietzner is a well-informed and engaging guide. Having heard him speak on the subject, I anticipate his upcoming biography of Jokowi will also be essential reading. •
Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and Its Limits in Democratic Indonesia
By Marcus Mietzner | Cornell University Press | US$36.95 | 306 pages
