INDONESIA CHOOSES - BACK TO THE PAST
First, the good news from Jakarta on the day after the national election.
The asphalt will not turn red. Canberra and Washington warning their citizens to stay inside and beware of riots were misplaced - no evidence-free allegations that the vote had been rigged, no overturned fire-bombed cop cars, no killings.
Instead, hundreds of thousands cheered and danced to celebrate the apparent win of their heroes - disgraced former general Prabowo Subianto, 72, and his vice-president sidekick Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 36.
He’s the eldest son of the present president Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo and mayor of small-town Solo. He was supposedly recruited to attract the youth vote, but also to keep Dad’s infrastructure policies going - particularly the new capital and palace in East Kalimantan.
The third candidate, Ganjar Pranowo, the former governor of Central Java, was almost out of sight with 17 per cent.
So Prabowo is set to take over in October. He'll be the nation's eighth leader since the 1945 Revolution when first president Soekarno declared the archipelago a Republic free from the three-century grip of the Dutch. A four-year guerrilla war followed before The Hague realised its colonial era was past.
In 1965 Soekarno was overthrown by the military led by General Soeharto who instigated the genocide of maybe 500,000 real or imagined Communists. More than 32 years of authoritarian rule known as Orde Baru (New Order) followed. In 1998 Soeharto resigned in the face of widespread demands for democracy.
In the late 1700s, the French Revolution guillotined the ruling royalty to ensure they'd never return. The Indonesian activists who brought down Soeharto at the turn of this century didn't want bloodshed; they naively assumed the King of the Kleptocrats and his cronies would disappear into quiet retirement tending their grand gardens, all wreathed in shame.
Wrong call: The Soeharto-era just shook its shoulders and garnered the funds to mount a full-on assault on the Palace using the new democracy.
Yesterday's voters knew little of the past and seemed to care less. It didn't matter to them that Prabowo, a professional soldier, had been dishonourably discharged for disobeying orders and then fled to exile in Jordan.
Three US presidents banned him from their country for violating human rights in both Indonesia and East Timor. He was also banned from Australia till 2019 when he entered as Defence Minister.
With the help of his businessman dollar billionaire younger brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo started the right-wing Gerakan Indonesia Raya (Gerindra - the Great Indonesia Movement) party as a vehicle for his political career after established parties rejected his approaches.
The cashiered former general lost three times, once as a vice president candidate and twice as president against Jokowi, but has now triumphed.
What sort of leader of 280 million people will he be? Australian Pat Walsh, an advisor to East Timor's CAVR (Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação), has no doubt.
In a scarifying review, the co-founder of the prestigious Australian magazine Inside Indonesia concluded that Prabowo was not a fit and proper person to be president.
"(He) …shared responsibility for the fate of hundreds of civilians who endured crimes …that offends the very essence of civilised humanity included starvation, forced displacement (including of children), rape, torture, killings, imprisonment and forced displacement."
This was not the image seen by voters. Instead, they were presented with a baby-faced gemoy (cute) grandpa, though the divorcee’s only son is childless and lives in Europe as a fashion designer. A triumph of jolly cartoons over serious policy and the future of the world's fourth-largest nation.
The VP role now held by Gibran is dubbed ban serep (spare tyre) in Indonesian slang, a powerless ceremonial job. More than half the voters are millennials or belong to Gen Z, so whether Gibran will lie back and enjoy the role or want to be involved and challenge his arrogant boss is one to watch.
Contrary to the imagery, the hot-tempered authoritarian Prabowo is not cute, says Professor Tim Lindsey of Melbourne University:
“He has repeatedly said Indonesia’s democratic system is not working and the country should return to its original 1945 Constitution. This would mean unraveling most of the reforms introduced since Soeharto fell …
“Among other things, Indonesia’s charter of human rights would go, as would the Constitutional Court. The courts would no longer be independent, direct presidential elections would end, the two-term presidential limit would go and the president could again control the legislature.”
Little is known in Indonesia of Prabowo's past, where a sanitised version of history is taught in schools. This shows the gallant military fighting for freedom in the 1940s, then defeating godless Communism in the 60s and recovering the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, now Timor L'Este, in the 70s.
Prabowo had been involved in four tours of duty on the island. According to Amnesty International, the invasion and occupation cost the lives of 250,000 civilians from violence or starvation during Indonesia’s 24-year control.
"A truth-telling process in Indonesia is needed," wrote Walsh. "The deeply regrettable downside of this overdue process in Indonesia is that a person with demonstrated disregard for the rule of law, of both the domestic and international kind and regarded by many as a war criminal, may be elected Indonesia's next president."
But he has been elected by the people in a process that may be the last. Commented Lindsey: “Indonesia’s fragile democratic system may be the next thing he reinvents – or, more likely, dismantles.”
Canberra will have to accept Prabowo and afford him status - that’s international diplomacy. It also needs Indonesia to help relationships with China that has been doing big business in Indonesia, particularly with loans and labour for nickel smelters, toll roads and fast rail.
That doesn’t mean the Australian human rights lobby and historians will not rally against the new President. If he does visit Canberra, watch out for the protests now not happening in Jakarta.
##
First published in Michael West Media, 15 February 2024: https://michaelwest.com.au/indonesia-elects-a-new-president-prabowosubianto/
No comments:
Post a Comment