Ian Wilson – Paramilitary mass organisations (ormas) have re-emerged in recent months as volatile high-profile actors, prompting concerns over the potential resurgence of informal coercive practices under Prabowo's presidency.
It underscores a deeper dynamic in Indonesian politics, where democratic forms coexist with deeply entrenched systems of rent-seeking, informal coercion, and patrimonialism.
Central to these developments is Rosario de Marcal – widely known as Hercules – who, beginning in the early 1990s, built a formidable gangster (preman) network centred in Jakarta's Tanah Abang market district.
His close association with Prabowo – reportedly established during military operations in East Timor and framed by Hercules as one of unwavering loyalty – has served as a form of social capital, bolstering his influence across both informal and formal political arenas.
Hercules' uneven transition from gangster to political operator, often framed as a narrative of redemption, has followed Prabowo's own political trajectory. In 2008, he established the United Indonesian People's Movement (GRIB) as an unofficial affiliate wing of Prabowo's Gerindra Party. Dedicated to securing Prabowo's path to the presidency, GRIB functioned as an organisational umbrella, intermediary and informal broker for a motley coalition of networks and supporters, many of whom had been cultivated during Prabowo's military tenure.
Elements of Hercules' network were also active in Garda Prabowo, a pro-Prabowo paramilitary group led by Fauka Nur Farid, a former member of the infamous Tim Mawar (Rose Team) unit within Kopassus, and allegedly involved in post-election riots in 2019.
A post-election feeding frenzy
Prabowo's 2024 presidential victory generated euphoria among his stable of preman loyalists.
Such was the certainty of GRIB's inextricable rise under the new administration that gang leaders, local bosses and entrepreneurs throughout the country reportedly entered into bidding wars for control of regional branches, rapidly expanding the organisation's reach and financial base. As one gang leader put it, Hercules and his organisation had become 'gatekeepers to the Prabowo kingdom'.
GRIB has sought to capitalise on this momentum, under the banner of supporting Prabowo's national agenda, albeit without his official endorsement.
Previously concentrated in Jakarta, GRIB expanded into more than 28 provinces. This rapid growth was not without friction: it encroached on territories controlled by rival groups and drew in new recruits who tested the limits of GRIB's informal authority.
Clashes soon erupted with rival group Pemuda Pancasila in West and Central Java. In Depok, a newly-minted GRIB commander incited followers to set fire to police cars during his arrest on charges of intimidation and discharging a firearm. In Central Kalimantan a GRIB branch forcibly closed a factory, highlighting the volatile and uneven expansion.
Meanwhile, Hercules publicly accused the Retired TNI Soldiers Forum of fermenting a coup following their petition to impeach Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka, and hurled insults at retired generals Sutiyoso and Gatot Nurmantyo. After Dede Mulyadi, the populist governor of West Java proposed an anti-preman taskforce, Hercules threatened to mobilise GRIB against him, claiming Mulyadi had forgotten GRIB's role in securing his election victory.
Yet it appeared Hercules had, once again, overplayed his hand. Bali's Governor Wayan Koster refused to register GRIB in the province, while an 'anti-GRIB alliance' in Central Kalimantan demanded a formal ban. Public calls for GRIB's disbandment intensified. Reports suggested that Prabowo himself was displeased.
Extortion, image control, and the reassertion of authority
GRIB was not alone in feeling emboldened. A series of high-profile extortion cases targeting foreign firms – most notably the EV manufacturers BYD and Vinfast – involved not only ormas but also officials from Indonesia's Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin). These incidents laid bare the disjuncture between entrenched rent-seeking practices and the government's external narrative of a stable, investment-friendly Indonesia.
In response to mounting media scrutiny, the national government announced the establishment of an anti-extortion task force. Police conducted nationwide 'anti-preman' operations, claiming to have netted thousands within days. Yet these arrests largely targeted parking attendants, informal debt collectors and other street-level actors alongside a handful of low-ranking ormas members.
Far from dismantling organised extortion by paramilitary organisations, these operations functioned to discipline, reorganise and integrate street-level racket economies into established political cartels while providing the appearance of robust law enforcement.
They also created pressure for unaffiliated strongmen to seek shelter within mass organisations, the national leaderships of which are integrated into political elite networks. In this sense, such operations have operated as mechanisms of incorporation and control in the regulation of predatory security.
Paramilitary mass organisations, in turn, are often legitimised as offering 'guidance' and discipline to socially marginalised and disruptive groups. Acts of criminality, or intimidation carried out on behalf of political patrons or clients – are typically attributed to under-socialised oknum, or 'deviant individuals' – rather than reflections of the organisation's core raison d'etre.
Prabowo has consistently argued for the inclusion of societal groups, including paramilitary ormas, into national security architecture, as seen in bela negara (national defence) initiatives, and the normalisation of coercive auxiliaries as instruments of governance.
Strategic reinvention
In response, GRIB launched a coordinated social media campaign extolling Hercules' piety, philanthropy and support for government programs – recasting the group as a 'defender of the weak'.
Emulating Pemuda Pancasila, GRIB deepened its elite integration by appointing white-collar professionals, government officials, and politicians – such as Deputy Minister of Manpower Immanuel Ebenezer – to its advisory council. Simultaneously, it announced stricter membership criteria as part of an internal reform agenda.
Following a public apology to Sutiyoso, reportedly at Prabowo's behest, the fallout from the anti-preman campaign did not culminate in a curtailment of GRIB's power. Rather, it marked a consolidation of its organisational structure and internal discipline. The result is, potentially, a more cohesive and strategically disciplined paramilitary formation loyal to the president.
A new gangster populism?
A more recent flashpoint helps us understand GRIB's evolving role under Prabowo.
In May 2025, GRIB was accused of illegally occupying 12 hectares of state-owned land belonging to Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) in South Tangerang, obstructing plans to build an archive facility. Despite multiple legal rulings affirming BMKG's ownership, GRIB's team of lawyers have demanded compensation on behalf of an alleged local heir while leasing parts of the land for profit.
Contested, overlapping land title claims have long been exploited by ormas and preman, and Hercules in particular. GRIB's strategy in this case introduced a novel rhetorical twist. By framing itself as acting on behalf of yang dizalimi (the oppressed), and asserting its role as a protector of marginalised communities, GRIB has sought to repackage coercive tactics as forms of grassroots justice.
This rhetorical shift, including explicit critiques of the police, appears designed to reframe actions such as illegal occupation as moral resistance against abusive state or corporate oknum.
In the future, this populist veneer may serve to mobilise public sympathy, broaden GRIB's support base, and complicate state-led interventions. It may also enhance GRIB's strategic utility, including as plausibly deniable instrument of intimidation against critics or rivals of the president – a form of 'gangster populism fusing coercive capacity and rent-seeking with a populist imaginary.