General Prabowo Subianto, accused of human rights abuses, claims victory in Indonesian elections

Indonesia is preparing for Prabowo Subianto, 72, to take over from Joko Widodo as president of the country, the third largest democracy on the planet.

Everything indicates that the first economy in Southeast Asia has chosen to continue over the next five years with the legacy of Widodo (nicknamed

Jokowi

) with his rival in the 2014 and 2019 elections. Prabowo, current Minister of Defense, had presented as the candidate who would inherit the policies of the popular incumbent president, who could not run for re-election after exhausting the maximum of two terms.

To complete the formula and capture the majority of the almost 205 million voters, Prabowo chose as his running mate Jokowi's eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is running for the position of vice president at only 36 years old.

The winner of the elections faces accusations of violating human rights in the late 1990s.

Between dances and confetti, Prabowo has declared himself the winner based on unofficial counts carried out by Indonesian electoral agencies, according to which he has won with between 57% and 59% of the votes.

His opponents, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, have not yet conceded defeat.

Although Prabowo has asked for “calm” until the electoral commission officially announces the winner, in his speech, he stated that it is “a victory for all the Indonesian people.”

The quick recounts are based on the actual vote count at a sample of polling stations across Indonesia.

The official one can take up to a month, but these calculations have provided an accurate idea of ​​the results in the four presidential elections held in the country directly and through universal suffrage (2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019).

Prabowo had led all the polls since the beginning of the campaign and has been able to take advantage of the recognition he already had for having run twice in the presidential elections.

To this he has added a letter that he did not previously count on: Jokowi's explicit support.

Known for his fervent nationalism and hot temper, Prabowo has been shaping that image in recent months to show the more affable and charismatic side of him.

On Instagram he has shown his day-to-day life and that of his cat Bobby, and his clumsy dances on TikTok have gone viral.

His great presence on the internet in a country where 60% of voters get their information through social networks (according to CSIS data) has helped him win a vote that, on this occasion, was crucial: that of the youths.

For the first time, more than half of the electorate (52%) was under 40 years of age.

But, despite the great support received, the Prabowo-Gibran tandem has not been without controversy.

Serious accusations of human rights violations are being leveled at the former general in the late 1990s, which cost him dismissal from the army and exile in Jordan in 1998. For his part, the candidacy of Jokowi's first-born son would not have been valid. without the Constitutional Court – chaired by his uncle – ruling in October that those under 40 years of age can run for the presidency or vice-presidency if they have previously held public office, as is the case of Gibran, who until now served as mayor of Surakarta .

“A few months ago I was nobody.

Now Prabowo and I are here,” said Gibran when celebrating the victory in Jakarta, alongside the winner of the elections.

“I want to thank Prabowo for offering a young person like me to be part of the path towards building a golden Indonesia,” he added.

Some critics have accused Widodo of trying to exert influence once he leaves the Merdeka palace and of building a political dynasty, despite being the first president to come to power without belonging to the political or military elite since the end of the dictatorship. of Suharto in 1998.

However, Ben Bland, director of the Asia-Pacific program at Catham House, considers it “unlikely” that Prabowo's victory will pose an existential threat to the country, as he recently wrote in an article published in

Foreign Affairs

.

Bland notes that the nation has mechanisms to limit the power of the president, such as a decentralized government system, as well as a vibrant civil society and independent media.

Likewise, he emphasized that “Jokowi's successor will be under enormous pressure to live up to the record [left by the outgoing president].”

In the latest survey published by the Jakarta-based polling company Indikator Politik, 80% of Indonesians were satisfied with Jokowi's leadership.

A decade of growth and modernization

Joko Widodo's decade (62 years) in power has been marked by rapid economic growth and modernization of the country, thanks to policies promoted to attract foreign investment and infrastructure improvements.

Indonesia has the world's largest reserves of nickel, an essential material for the manufacture of electric vehicles, solar panels and other key products for the ecological transition, which have attracted leaders in the sector, such as the Chinese CATL and the South Koreans LG and Hyunday.

The Indonesian economy has also benefited from rising raw material prices in recent years, as the country is the largest producer of palm oil, as well as one of the largest exporters of coal, oil, gas, rubber and tin, among others. Another resources.

The Indonesian electorate's enthusiasm for Prabowo reflects the conviction that the new president will be the guarantor of that legacy.

In his campaign, Prabowo announced that he will continue with Jokowi's large infrastructure projects, as well as the plan to move the capital from the congested, polluted and increasingly sinking Jakarta to Nusantara, a completely new city still under construction in the tropical island of Borneo.

Prabowo has also promised that he will try to get Indonesia into the electric vehicle value chain, using the country's huge nickel and cobalt reserves, and restricting their export to attract more foreign companies to invest in Indonesian soil.

Regarding foreign policy, the new president has indicated in several interviews during the campaign that Indonesia will continue to “respect all countries and great powers.”

“We want to maintain good relations with everyone.

We don't want to join one bloc and be against another.

Our position is unique.

We are friends from all over the world.

In any conflict or competition, we are the ones that all parties accept,” he told Al Jazeera a few weeks ago.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with more than 275 million inhabitants, of which 90% are Muslims, making it the nation with the largest Muslim population on the planet.

Its strategic location in Southeast Asia – with a vast archipelago of 17,000 islands stretching between the Indian and Pacific Oceans – and its economy – the first in the region, with aspirations to become the fourth largest in the world by 2045 – put them in a good position to play a key role in the increasingly tense relations between China and the United States, powers with which it flirts.

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