Indonesia's Week of Violence: Waiting to Happen

Systemic change needed for democracy to survive

The riots and demonstrations that have shaken Indonesia for the past week have been coming for months, built on a confident, tone-deaf government lulled by a decisive electoral victory in last February’s national polls into blithely ignoring the mounting unease. After at least six people died and the finance minister’s and four lawmakers’ houses were looted, the violence came to a sudden stop when protesters, perhaps overawed by the damage they had wrought, called them off, at least for now.

The warning signs of the unrest have been there in increasing economic pressure, particularly on a shrinking middle class; 4.76 percent unemployment, the highest in the region, projected by the IMF to rise to 5.1 percent; US$190 million in budget cuts and reallocations away from education, public works, housing and agriculture to fund President Prabowo Subianto’s free meals plan and other programs. On January 1, the government increased the value-added tax to 12 percent as services were being cut.

There have been growing concerns over Prabowo’s determination to move the government back toward dominance by the military that had characterized the New Order years of his strongman, onetime father-in-law, Suharto. The government faces what was called “a perfect storm of debt,” with nearly US$50 billion due this year and traceable to former Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s headlong infrastructure spending.

There is the equally distressing problem that, in fact, the elites who ruled Indonesia at Suharto’s fall in 1998 never fell with him. Prabowo, himself the scion of one of Indonesia’s richest families, is an example. Suharto’s children were never prosecuted for their role in looting the country. The elites have continued to rule Jakarta, a large percentage of them aristocratic Chinese families, without a break as the country set out to try to implement an imperfect democracy. They are bolstered by a national police force known in the eyes of the people as corrupt, brutal, and inept, and a judiciary, its distressing equal.

The government had a warning in mid-February, when a wave of demonstrations erupted in Jakarta under the banner of Indonesia Gelap (Dark Indonesia), led by university students and various civil society organizations, spreading across multiple regions, with thousands of protesters taking to the streets and storming local legislative offices.

Those demonstrations, wrote Oleh Ismail Khozen, a University of Indonesia lecturer, in February, “reflect[ed] deep public anxiety over the tightening grip of the elites on state policies, an alarming phenomenon known as state capture. State capture occurs when government policies no longer serve the public interest but are instead manipulated by a small group of business and political elites with privileged access to power.”

The Gelap protests, he warned, were a “stark expression of public concern over the growing visibility of state capture in Indonesia. The dominance of business actors in government is no longer a mere suspicion; it’s an undeniable reality.”

Such warnings went unheeded, with Prabowo and others calling the protests the work of “paid corruptors.” The president, who has consolidated government behind him by bringing almost all of Indonesia’s political parties into his bloated 100-member cabinet, insisted on launching his Free Nutritious Lunch Program for school children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers at a 2025 cost estimated at Rp171 trillion (US$10.4 billion), rising to almost Rp 400 trillion by next year, requiring funds to be diverted from other programs.

Indonesia Corruption Watch, as Ismail Khozen wrote, revealed that at least 354 of 580 (61 percent) members of the House of Representatives for the 2024-2029 term have business backgrounds, and with key ministerial positions now held by individuals with direct business interests, “causing the risk of conflicts of interest to skyrocket.”

Lawmakers already receive salaries 42 times the salary of an average Indonesian worker, in addition to accumulating riches via such intense influence peddling that the House of Representatives passed legislation in 2019– with the full cooperation of former President Joko Widodo – to emasculate the Corruption Eradication Commission, which at that time was prosecuting the House Speaker, Setya Novanto, after jailing a flock of other lawmakers.

“I think the government believed it was immune because of the election victory,” said a western observer with long experience in Jakarta. “But the big straw was the housing allowance.” The fuse was lit. Black flags bearing a skull with a straw hat, taken from the popular Japanese anime One Piece, carried by pirates, made it their mission to challenge a draconian regime and fight for freedom, and began popping up across the country. The demonstrations that shook the country last week followed.

The February Gelap protests, Ismail Khozen wrote in February, “underscored a rising public fear over the elite’s tightening grip on national policies. To prevent Indonesia from sinking further into the trap of state capture, the first and foremost step is to strengthen transparency and accountability in governance.”

That didn’t happen. It’s questionable whether Indonesia has the fortitude to do that. Prabowo’s first response was to say the government would take note of people's complaints and take appropriate action, blaming unnamed agitators. A.W. Hendropriyono, the retired head of Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency, blamed outsiders.

Then, on August 31, seemingly shaken by the violence, Prabowo, flanked by members of every political party, announced the suspension from parliament of the lawmakers whose homes were attacked. The political parties, he said, would jettison the excessive allowances and stop official overseas visits – trips that are widely viewed as free vacations for family and friends.

But there was no indication he or the legislature would address the root causes of the unrest. While he said in a presidential palace speech, “The rights to peaceful assembly should be respected and protected,” he added that “…we cannot deny that there are signs of actions outside the law, even against the law, even leaning toward treason and terrorism."

Instead, there are fears that his instincts as the onetime commanding general of Kopassus, the Indonesian Special Forces, until he was summarily fired for civil rights excesses in the wake of Suharto’s fall, are liable to kick in.

The first to go, according to speculation in Jakarta, will be Police-General Listyo Sigit Prabowo, Jokowi’s pick as chief of the national police, with the public calling for his head because of the violence against demonstrators. If Listyo goes, said one observer, Prabowo will then control the police, the military, and the House of Representatives.

Since his October 1 inauguration, Prabowo has expanded the armed forces' role in civil government, including having them play a major role in his flagship Free Nutritional Meal program. In March, at Prabowo’s behest, the parliament unanimously approved amendments to the armed forces law to significantly expand the military’s role in civilian governance and weaken legal checks. The law enabled officials to fill more civilian posts with active-duty military personnel, including in the justice system and state-owned companies.

Political system reforms are needed to broaden independent and public participation in the decision-making process, Kozen wrote last February. “Political party funding must be made more transparent and less dependent on large donations from business elites, which often lead to political indebtedness. If these measures are taken, democracy may no longer serve as a mere tool for a select few to maintain their interests but instead, a system where those in public office genuinely work for the people.

“But is that still possible?” he asked. “Or have we perhaps been conditioned to abandon hope altogether? Unless, of course, this government has indeed reached the point where it is beyond hope.”