Hasnan Bachtiar – In many of his campaign speeches, President Prabowo Subianto portrayed himself as the only candidate capable of taking on the corrupt elite. This was primarily in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections, when his campaign relied heavily on his projected image as a strongman rather than the cuddly grandpa of 2024.
In 2014, he told his supporters, do you want change, or do you want the situation we have now? [change] can only come if we eradicate corruption to its roots!
In 2019, he claimed that a handful of people control the wealth of hundreds of millions of Indonesians. the problem is that Indonesia's wealth is being robbed, stolen. We need to elect a government that can stop this robbery.
These claims are clear enough, but is he really acting on them?
Prabowo's military brand of populism
Populism as a struggle by the people against oppressive ruling elites. Ernesto Laclau says this struggle is rooted in social suffering, which compels the people to unite through a strong sense of shared solidarity.
Having examined Prabowo's campaign rhetoric, many scholars have described him as either a chauvinist populist, an oligarchic populist or a fluctuating populist. But, in my view, Prabowo represents military populism, and his war on corruption regardless of whether it succeeds or not is part and parcel of that.
In this framework, Prabowo stands as a symbol of military power grounded in the rhetoric of the Indonesian military (TNI) being an integral part of the people. For the former commander of the Army's special forces (Kopassus), the military is the moral bedrock of the common people.
Prabowo projects himself as a charismatic military leader who symbolically embodies the grievances and demands of the people, particularly concerning the issue of corruption, which is widely seen as deeply entrenched.
Indeed, Transparency International says the fight against corruption in Indonesia has been sluggish at best. In 2024, its corruption perception index (CPI) score even slipped to 37, far from the 80-point threshold for a clean and accountable government.
Prabowo's war on corruption
However, following Prabowo's inauguration on October 20, 2024, law enforcers mainly the Attorney General's Office and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) have launched investigations into a number of high-profile, multi-billion dollar corruption cases.
The largest among them centres on the dysfunctional crude oil governance delivered by state-owned energy company Pertamina, with state losses estimated at 968.5 trillion rupiah (about US$58 billion). One of the suspects in the case is Riza Chalid, a politically connected oil tycoon who has long dominated the oil-import business in Indonesia.
The second-largest case involves PT Timah Tbk and is based on irregularities in the tin commodity trade that have cost the state Rp 300 trillion. Other corruption cases feature smaller state losses, though they are by no means insignificant: the Wilmar oil palm graft case (Rp 11.8 trillion in state losses); the Indonesian Eximbank (LPEI) credit deals case (Rp11.7 trillion); and the Chromebook procurement case at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) (Rp 9.9 trillion rupiah).
It is worth noting here that the total value of the combined state losses from these cases is greater than the combined losses in all corruption cases from the fall of Soeharto in 1998 to the end of President Joko Widodo's presidency last year.
Over those two and a half decades, the largest corruption case was the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) scandal, dating back to the early post-Suharto period, with state losses of 138.44 trillion rupiah.
Other major historical cases include the PT Duta Palma Group case at 78 trillion rupiah, the PT TPPI case at 37.8 trillion, the PT Asabri case at 22.7 trillion, and the PT Jiwasraya case at 16.8 trillion rupiah.
The much greater size of the losses in the cases initiated since Prabowo was sworn in suggest he is living up to his promises. Yet, questions remain about whether the president is really going all out in his war on graft.
The politics of anti-graft campaign
In particular, some have asked whether Prabowo's anti-corruption campaign under has been directed at undermining his opposition.
Take Hasto Kristiyanto, for example, the secretary-general of Indonesia's sole de-facto opposition party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for bribing a former member of the General Elections Commission (KPU) in 2020 to give a legislative seat left vacant by a deceased PDI-P lawmaker to another PDI-P member, Harun Masiku. The PDI-P has claimed that the case against Hasto was a form of selective justice and political interference.
Thomas Lembong, a political supporter of Anies Baswedan (Prabowo's chief rival in the 2024 election), was recently sentenced to four years and six months in prison over a sugar import policy. The case against him is even more controversial because the court found no evidence of corruption or malicious intent, given that Lembong was not found to have benefited personally from the alleged corruption.
In an unprecedented move, Prabowo has now pardoned both Hasto and Lembong. This appears to be a move to construct an image as a populist leader who is above the fray of partisan vendettas. Critics, however, slammed the decision as legal politicisation that could further erode public trust in the law.
After all, Lembong and Hasto are widely seen as the political rivals of Jokowi, rather than of Prabowo. The president's pardons could therefore be interpreted as an attempt to undermine Jokowi and appease the anti-Jokowi elite including PDI-P, which loathes Jokowi and expelled him from its ranks as a traitor. On this view, Prabowo's handling of these cases has enabled him to intimidate all of the PDI-P, Anies and Jokowi, sending a clear message to anyone else who may want to oppose him.
The real test of these allegations will be whether Prabowo government is willing to crack down on major corruption cases that involve individuals or groups from within his own (enormous) Red and White coalition.
Media coverage has already referenced some of the top officials within Prabowo's ruling coalition such as Budi Arie Setiadi and Sufmi Dasco, in relation to an online gambling case that is believed to have involved 1,200 trillion rupiah. While online gambling is not a form of corruption, the protection provided by powerful state officials for this illegal industry could be.
Regardless of all the rhetoric, if Prabowo's war on corruption, framed as one of his populist promises, ultimately ends up selectively targeting his political enemies and protecting his allies, it will be primarily serving his own interests rather than those of the public.
Source: https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/prabowos-populist-war-on-corruption-can-it-really-work