Burhanuddin Muhtadi – Dedi Mulyadi, the governor of West Java, Indonesia's most populous province, has been in the spotlight since he took office on 20 February 2025, partly due to his skilful use of social media to grow his support base.
Dedi is a successful politician who has built a populist image, starting from his 10 years as regent of Purwakarta (2008-2018), followed by his service as a parliamentarian (2019-2023) representing Golkar. He later joined Gerindra, President Prabowo Subianto's party, and contested the 2024 legislative election under its banner. Although elected, Dedi chose to step down to pursue the West Java gubernatorial race. Dedi won the West Java governorship in 2024, with 62.2 per cent of the vote in a four-way race. Recent surveys indicate that Dedi's popularity extends beyond West Java, strengthening speculation of his possible candidacy for high office in 2029.
Dedi, 54, has successfully built a persona as a politician who never hesitates to get his hands dirty, literally and figuratively. One viral social media post was where he went down to a dirty sewer on 5 March 2025 to clean up a clogged river's floodgates. A recent policy of his that elicited some controversy was the sending of problematic students to attend fortnight-long discipline training and counselling at military compounds, funded by his province's budget. Academics regard this act as a form of "biopower", which exclusively concentrates on disciplining children's bodies without fostering the creativity of their minds. The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) criticised his administration for sending the students to such 'camps' without prior assessment from psychologists.
Notwithstanding this, Dedi's policy garnered widespread public approval. Indikator's polls conducted from 12-19 May 2025 in six provinces showed that respondents' satisfaction levels with Dedi's first 100 days' performance as governor of West Java were the highest for all governors in Java (Figure 1), at 94.7 per cent. For comparison, Sultan Hamengkubowono X, veteran governor of the special region of Yogyakarta, came in second with 83.8 per cent.
Figure 1. Public Satisfaction with Performance of Governors & Deputy Governors, Java (%) (see original document) – Indikator Politik.
Note: The survey across six provinces in Java was conducted in-person from 12-19 May 2025, using multi-stage random sampling. Sample sizes varied: 500 respondents (Jakarta), 600 each (West, Central, and East Java); and 400 each (Yogyakarta and Banten). Blue columns indicate satisfaction levels with governors, while yellow ones represent satisfaction with deputy governors.
Certainly, Dedi's high approval rating is not attributable exclusively to his performance as governor, since he has been in office for just three months. The surveys also revealed a discrepancy between the public's views of the West Java provincial administration's performance and Dedi's personal popularity. Respondents were only moderately satisfied with the provincial government's ability to enhance workforce quality (47 per cent), promote cooperatives (43 per cent), facilitate access to capital (43 per cent), and reduce poverty (42 per cent). Dedi's deputy, Erwan Setiawan, achieved a 61.3 per cent satisfaction rating.
Dedi's widespread popularity is influenced by the successful alignment of his digital campaigns with offline activities: his in-person activities are broadcast on all his social media platforms. As of 12 June 2025, he had amassed 12 million followers on Facebook, 8 million on TikTok, 7.7 million on YouTube, 4.5 million on Instagram and more on X albeit granted that some of these followings will overlap. Tempo assessed that Dedi's prominence is due to the strong support of a creative social media team that includes seven videographers. Yet many other Indonesian politicians have content teams but their content or narratives do not resonate with the audience as widely, nor are their ratings so high. Looking at West Java's respondents' views, Dedi's social media content is relatable due to its relevance and his populist policies (Table 1).
Table 1. West Java Residents' Views of Dedi Mulyadi's Policies/Regulations (see original document) – Indikator Politik.
Note: The survey was carried out in West Java from 12 to 19 May 2025, involving 600 respondents (it has a margin of error of 4.1 per cent, at the 95 per cent confidence level).
It is intriguing that every policy that Dedi implements is also known to the residents of five other provinces in Java, likely given his widespread use of mainstream and social media. Indikator discovered that 83.7 per cent of Banten's residents and 88.5 per cent of Jakarta's, 73.1 per cent of Yogyakarta's, 60.5 per cent of Central Java's, and 55.6 per cent of East Java's were aware of Dedi's policy of sending misbehaving students to the military barracks. The overwhelming majority of those in Java who were aware of this policy supported it.
It is conceivable that Dedi's popularity will extend beyond Java. His seemingly meteoric rise increases his prospects for high office in 2029. The last three presidential elections (PE) in Indonesia have seen how governorship is one of the most promising avenues for politicians to ascend to the highest levels of national fame, including Joko Widodo's ascent to the 2014 presidency after being Jakarta's governor, and another former Jakarta governor, Anies Baswedan, contending for the 2024 presidency against Prabowo Subianto.
However, Dedi's popularity presents a delicate political situation. As a Gerindra cadre, he is bound by the party's decision to re-nominate Prabowo as its PE2029 candidate. Furthermore, Dedi's prospects of being Prabowo's running mate are slim because candidate pairs are more likely to come from different parties. Dedi's skyrocketing popularity could even threaten Prabowo if a rival party courts the much younger man as their nominee. When every party participating in PE2029 can nominate their own presidential and vice-presidential candidates, now that the Constitutional Court has eliminated the nomination threshold, it is possible that some will start to approach Dedi, as his star continues to rise.
[Burhanuddin Muhtadi is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Indonesia Studies Programme, ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, and Senior Lecturer at Islamic State University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah.]