Ary Hermawan – On Friday, 18 July 2025, the Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced former trade minister Thomas Lembong to 4.5 years in prison for his role in a corruption case centering on the import of raw sugar in 2015.
Lembong, a key ally of opposition figure Anies Baswedan, was found guilty of unilaterally ordering the illegal import of 105,000 tons of raw sugar, causing Rp 194 billion rupiah in state losses. The sentence is lighter than the prosecutors demand that he be jailed for seven years for his crimes.
While corruption trials have virtually become a national pastime in Indonesia, where the public sector is widely perceived to be profoundly corrupt, the case against Lembong has attracted public attention for a different reason. Critics have highlighted the irregularities in his prosecution, fuelling speculation that the charges levelled against him were politically motivated.
As a result, many now see Lembong's case as a test of how the Prabowo Subianto administration deals with opposition, amid fears of further democratic backsliding under his leadership.
Prosecutorial cherry-picking?
Lembong was charged with corruption over a series of policies he introduced 10 years ago when he was serving as trade minister under former president Joko Widodo. Tellingly, prosecutors had only notified him of their investigation into the case on 3 October 2023, a month before he officially joined Anies campaign on 14 November 2023. He was later arrested on 29 October 2024, just days after the inauguration of President Prabowo Subianto and Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
The prosecutors claimed that he authorised the import of raw sugar despite a decision made at a Cabinet meeting in May 2015 that the country had surplus production of sugar. Furthermore, according to Trade and Industry Ministerial Decree 27/2004, the ministry is only allowed to import refined or white sugar, not raw sugar.
The other alleged illegality is that he awarded the procurement project to a private company, PT AP, breaching the 2004 ministerial decree, which says that procurement should be reserved for state companies.
Lembong, the prosecutors said, introduced these policies without coordinating with other ministries.
But Mahfud MD, who ran as VP candidate in the last election, questioned the timing of the prosecution, suggesting it was politically charged. He argued that Lembong's policies were made a long time ago, and four ministers after him had adopted similar policies. Furthermore, he said, the AGO strangely did not know the amount of state losses when they named Lembong a suspect in the case, even though loss is a key element of any corruption case (the Development Finance Comptroller, or BPKP, only released the figure three months later).
In his defence, Lembong accused the prosecutors of cherry-picking their targets. Other than Lembong, the other suspects in the case are Charless Sitorus, a director at state-owned trading company PT Perusahaan Perdagangan Indonesia (PT PPI), and CEOs of eight companies that were awarded the raw sugar import projects. In fact, there are other plenty of other companies and institutions that benefited from the same policy, but their officials have escaped prosecution. They include PT Adikarya Gemilang, the Indonesian Sugarcane Association (APTRI), and cooperatives owned by the Indonesian Military and the National Police all were granted licences to import raw sugar on Lembong's watch.
It is odd that the prosecutors failed to indict most of those who benefitted from the former minister's alleged crime, especially when he is only accused of enriching others, not himself.
Furthermore, the defence team has proven that there was, in fact, no surplus of raw sugar when Lembong issued the imports policy. This is because, as stated by an Agriculture Ministry official at the trial, Indonesia has never had a surplus of raw sugar. The import policy, according to the defence team, was also coordinated with other ministries, and was made to respond to President Jokowi's order to stabilise sugar prices at the time.
Political conspiracy?
The main issue with Lembong's case is the political backdrop to his prosecution. He was one of the most strategic allies, or assets, of Anies Baswedan, the strongest challenger to the Prabowo-Gibran candidacy in the last election. Anies has also been working to keep his presidential bid alive by establishing a mass organisation, Gerakan Rakyat (People's Movement), which analysts say will likely transform into a political party in time for the next elections.
It is hard to ignore the political undertones to Lembong's prosecution. As a successful Indonesian Chinese businessman, Lembong is a major political and economic asset for Anies. Not only could he help Anies gain voters from minority groups, but he could also help him accumulate financial resources to fund a future presidential bid.
Both Prabowo and Jokowi, who is struggling to carve a path to presidency for his son, Gibran, consider Anies a formidable contender for the 2029 presidential election. A graft conviction for Lembong, Anies key ally, would clearly serve their interests.
Moreover, Jokowi's enmity towards Lembong could be driven by personal reasons. Unlike Anies, who was fired as education minister by Jokowi after only a year in office, Lembong stayed in Jokowi's cabinet throughout the latter's first term in office, and also served as the head of Investment Coordinating Board, or BKPM, after leaving the trade ministry. He was well known as one of Jokowi's speech writers and had accompanied Jokowi to range of significant global events.
Jokowi now sees Lembong as betraying him. Not only did Lembong later join Anies, Jokowi's nemesis, he also became one of Jokowi's fiercest critics, challenging the latter's credentials as a technocrat. In a social media post, he posted a video in which Jokowi had to refer to him to answer difficult questions in an international forum. The video was widely circulated during the election campaign to attack Jokowi.
What does the verdict mean for Indonesia?
The fact that the investigation into Lembong's case started during the 2024 election campaign, nearly 10 years after alleged crimes, and the fact that he was only formally declared a suspect less than two weeks after the inauguration of Prabowo and Gibran, only fuel allegations of a political conspiracy.
Lembong himself has repeatedly claimed that his legal quagmire is the result of his political activities as a member of the opposition group. Likewise, Anies has publicly expressed his support for Lembong, once a globally well-regarded trade minister, saying that Indonesia's international credibility is at stake.
Regardless of whether the prosecutors have a strong case against Lembong, his prosecution can be seen as another example of how, in Indonesia, politics is above the law. In other words, the law can easily be turned into a weapon for the powerful.
It now looks very much as though this long-standing trend is set to continue under Prabowo's administration.