For much of Prabowo’s time on the political stage, and particularly throughout his 2014 and 2019 presidential campaigns, scholars and policy analysts alike have described him as a “populist” with authoritarian tendencies.
He has long relied on divisive rhetoric – separating society into two groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite” – in order to mobilize his supporters.
For much of Prabowo’s political career, this entailed dividing Indonesian society into “elites,” usually characterized as wealthy ethnic Chinese who support foreign powers in “looting” Indonesia, and “victims,” i.e., the average Indonesian.
In 1998, long before running for political office, Prabowo met with Muslim intellectuals and clerics and distributed data on “the economic dominance” of Chinese-Indonesians in Indonesia.
The weaponization of this division was on full display throughout the 2019 elections, when Prabowo spread unfounded rumors that Jokowi was secretly a “Chinese Christian” who was selling his country out to China.
And it didn’t help that Prabowo had long existing ties with the Islamic Defenders’ Front and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, hardline conservative Islamist groups that spearheaded massive protests against ethnic Chinese governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja “Ahok” Purnama, in 2016.
Prabowo also frequently claimed, implicitly or explicitly, that politics should reflect volonté générale, or the “will of the people,” with the corollary that this can only be achieved through centralized strongman rule.
His campaigns in 2014 and 2019 heavily favored large public rallies, during which he would refer to his audience as brothers (saudara).
He frequently evoked notions of the people’s economy (ekonomi kerakyatan) and described liberalization policies pursued in the aftermath of the 1998 reformasi movement as an “economic war” waged against the Indonesian people.
And after losing to Jokowi in the 2019 election, he accused the government of electoral fraud, elevating the notion of a conspiracy against his supporters and the “Indonesian people” more broadly.
Backing this rhetoric were claims that he is the only leader capable of fixing Indonesia’s many problems, such as in 2019, when he regularly lamented that Indonesia would be “at risk of extinction” if he lost the election.
