Indonesia, explained.
Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia's president, centre right, with attendees at the Bank Indonesia annual meeting in Jakarta in November (Rosa Panggabean/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Prabowo is deeply invested in areas of his interest but the policies that fall outside are unlikely to get much of a look-in from the president.
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The scorecard for Prabowo’s first 100 days? “Confused”The scorecard for Prabowo’s first 100 days? “Confused”
One of the great questions that lingered after former army general Prabowo Subianto won Indonesia’s presidential election with a landslide last February was: what kind of president would this man be? As Indonesia’s notoriously long gap between election and inauguration dragged on and cabinet positions were debated, little became clearer. This weekend marks 100 days since Prabowo was inaugurated to great fanfare in Jakarta, and a series of early missteps, snubs and a new multilateral membership card gives a mixed report card.
Joining BRICS (the now misnomer acronym for the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa body) was an immediate priority for the Prabowo cabinet. Indonesia signed on the dotted line earlier this month, making it the first Southeast Asian country to join. The move has raised eyebrows among watchers cautious of a broader tilt away from the West or concerned about tying economic fortunes to less-than-reliable countries.
But, while Indonesia has tended to walk a moderate, if somewhat underwhelming, line in foreign policy for much of this century, a readjustment should have been anticipated. Foreign Minister Sugiono, a close ally of the president rather than the career diplomats of recent cabinets, has spruiked the “free and active” policy on overseas visits. The snappy policy slogan allows Indonesia to “collaborate widely without aligning too closely with any single bloc,” as Aswin Ariyanto Azis of Universitas Brawijaya put it for The Conversation.
Disinterest is one thing, but sudden policy U-turns are another.
ASEAN remains the heart of Indonesian foreign policy, but there are signs that it could be less about fostering a strong regional community and more about asserting Indonesia’s place as a huge fish in a medium-sized pond. Sugiono backed out of a Thailand-led initiative to gather ASEAN foreign ministers in Bangkok last month to discuss the Myanmar crisis. Thailand’s ambitions here are manifold and complicated, but Sugiono’s snub was similarly ambiguous. While other member states including Singapore and Malaysia, this year’s ASEAN chair, sent ministers, Sugiono instead opted for high-level ministerial staff. Why he was unable to attend has not been disclosed.
The meeting was not formally ASEAN but it was close enough and that makes it a disappointment Sugiono opted out, commentator Dewi Fortuna Anwar noted at the time. Indonesia is the “de facto leader of ASEAN” owing to its size and hosting of the secretariat in Jakarta, and stepping back from one of its largest challenges does not bode well. That it came just months after the puzzling statements made by Prabowo on the South China Sea in October, foreign policy so far is probably better described as “free, active and confused”.
Closer to home, the ambitious school-based free lunch program for children was launched this month after 18 months of promises by Prabowo on the campaign trail. Oddly, he was not involved in any of the launch events. Instead, Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka and a litany of high-ranked ministers were deployed to ham it up for the cameras, both for the media and their own sizable social media teams.
The first day of free food provided daily to school students by the government, Penggilingan, Jakarta, on 6 January 2025 (Dasril Roszandi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
We’ll never know why Prabowo didn’t head down to a local primary school for a snap with students. It is likely a high-profile instance of something that is becoming clearer with each month: Prabowo is deeply, personally invested in the areas of his interest but the policies that fall outside of that narrow remit are unlikely to get much of a look-in from the president. Disinterest is one thing, but sudden policy U-turns are another. A one per cent hike to the Value Added Tax slated for 1 January was ditched at the eleventh hour following public outcry. Unpopular from the get-go, as tax increases tend to be world over, student-led protests took to the streets and online demanding the government reconsider under cost-of-living pressures. Business groups complained that an increase to 12 per cent would impact production costs.
Prabowo’s finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, had been talking up the plan for months. After serving in President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s cabinet, she stayed on as a signal of continuity to the business community. The VAT increase would have been such a continuity, as laid out by a 2021 regulation.
Prabowo gave ground to critics, abandoning an overall increase in the VAT and instead focusing strictly on luxury goods. Sri Mulyani and Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto, similarly a transfer from the Jokowi cabinet, pivoted and pushed the plan as a progressive tax – richer Indonesians would be affected, and they’ll fund the lunches.
It’s an interesting contrast to the former president’s own experiences with early unpopular economic measures. Just months after his 2014 inauguration, Jokowi cut the fuel subsidy. It was a move that predated him and was introduced during the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono era, but Jokowi wore it easily despite low-level protests and annual inflation higher than currently.
Prabowo’s first 100 days could be less consequential than his next. Last month, he suggested abolishing regional direct elections and instead implementing a system in which these roles are appointed by local legislatures. The suggestion ignited fears among democracy defenders and rights watchers that here is the beginning of Prabowo’s strongman ambitions. Prabowo-aligned parties have already confirmed they would at least “consider” the plan. It would require a revision of the elections law – a law already slated to go up for deliberations this year.
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