Editor’s note: this article is based on the author’s Political Update paper presented at the 2023 ANU Indonesia Update Conference, the full version of which appears in the December 2023 edition of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies.

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In 2023, as the second term of Joko Widodo (Jokowi) concludes and the 2024 election looms, elements of his ruling coalition have renewed strategies of accommodation, co-optation, legal challenge, repression, and coercion to restrict the prospects of open political contestation. Examined in totality, these tactics directly target the core institutional and political wins of Indonesia’s reformasi movement: regular elections, human rights, rule of law and judicial activism, regional autonomy and anti-corruption. The inability of oppositional and protest movements to resurrect and rebuild a national coalition to curtail the elite rollback of reformasi indicates that they are exhausted as a salient political force.

Surveying this narrowed field of political contestation in the twilight of the Jokowi administration, I am struck by the extent to which the previously untouchable institutions of reformasi have been subject to elite rollback. What contestation there is appears primarily generated by internal splits between this ruling coalition. This political narrowing, I argue here, is driven not only by Jokowi’s desire to see the 2024 presidential elections proceed on terms favourable to his own political interests, but also out of a broader political imperative to foreclose conflicts arising from the contradictions and inequalities inherent in Indonesia’s middle-income status.

Critically, while millions of Indonesians have been lifted out of poverty since the Asian Financial Crisis, that social mobility has not has not translated into economic security. While Indonesia’s middle and upper classes continue to benefit disproportionately from economic growth, over 40% of the Indonesian electorate are “precariously non-poor”. Continued social mobility for this “aspirational middle class” is contingent on the Indonesian government’s commitment to, and ability to deliver, core rights and quality services, in particular around labour, housing, health, and education.

But how do governing coalitions appease voters for benefits that are only likely to emerge in the medium term? More importantly, given the predatory interests that block reforms in key sectors, can successive governments ever develop the political coalitions to deliver quality services to Indonesia’s working poor? I argue that Indonesia’s democratic decline is a function of the new political imperatives of Indonesia’s middle-income status.

All the president’s men

On display in 2023 has been Jokowi’s power to (re)shape the terms on which the 2024 presidential elections are fought, due in part to his soaring personal popularity as his term comes to an end. Whereas former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono slunk out of office in 2014 on approval rates of 49%, Jokowi’s approval ratings are the highest since he entered office in 2014, hovering between 75–85% throughout 2023. The president’s vigilance on inflation rates and his expansion of social welfare programs in the lead up to the election have given rise to an unexpected economic bounce fuelled by consumer spending.

The effect of this popularity has been that Jokowi has been able to embed his personal and policy interests into the presidential race. Proposals to extend the presidential term beyond the “previously sacrosanct” two-term limit only dissipated once Jokowi turned his influence towards the presidential nomination process, using political nepotism to secure his interests.

The president has shored up his family dynasty by promoting the political careers of his sons, Gibran Rakabuming Raka and Kaesang Pangarep. Jokowi and his wife Iriana were instrumental in ensuring Gibran would claim the vice-presidential nomination on a Prabowo ticket. Jokowi has also helped manoeuvre his youngest son Kaesang, a YouTuber turned catering entrepreneur, to become the chair of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) in early October 2023. Over Jokowi’s second term, PSI shifted from being an overtly “millennial” party with secular progressive credentials to the guardian of the president’s legacy and of “Jokowisme”. Kaesang’s takeover of PSI finally gives Jokowi a party vehicle that is unencumbered by rival powerbrokers and can advance his interests in the political system, should it enter parliament in 2024.

Coercion by criminalisation

A second arena in which we have witnessed a narrowing field of democratic political contestation has been in the harnessing of Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies to pursue political figures—whether opposition, or nominal allies—on fresh and resurrected corruption charges.

An important instrument in this project has been the Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, or KPK). The KPK was established in 2002 as a fundamental demand of the reformasi movement, and over the period of Indonesia’s democratic reform it became a prized institution of legal activism. After numerous failed attempts, parliament suddenly passed crippling amendments to the KPK Law in September 2019 and installed Firli Bahuri, a police general aligned to intelligence tsar and PDI-P party stalwart Budi Gunawan, as its chairman.

The fruits of the KPK’s political co-optation were seen in the agency’s once-celebrated  investigatory powers being harnessed to influence party coalition formation ahead of the 2024 presidential nomination.

When former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan first announced his intention to contest the presidency in late 2022, he was supported by the NasDem Party, a Jokowi coalition member, as well as by opposition parties PKS and Partai Demokrat. Initial polling was positive, with Anies running a close second to Ganjar in a hypothetical three-way presidential race.

But a series of high-profile corruption scandals pursued by the KPK and the attorney general’s department irreversibly weakened the Anies Baswedan coalition. In September 2022, the KPK announced it had opened a corruption investigation into the then governor of Papua, Lukas Enembe, a major revenue raiser for Partai Demokrat. By June 2023, the KPK had also put the then agriculture minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo, a senior NasDem politician, under investigation, raiding his homes and the ministry. Two days before PKB party chairman Muhaimin Iskandar was announced as Anies’ running mate in September 2023, the KPK summoned Muhaimin to discuss a corruption case within the Ministry of Manpower, which Muhaimin had led during the SBY government from 2009 to 2014.

Firli also continually circulated rumours of corrupt conduct on Anies’ part relating to a Formula E electric vehicle grand prix organised under his governorship. The Formula E affair became a full-blown crisis in mid-2023 when Firli terminated Brigadier General Endar Priantoro’s secondment from the Indonesian National Police (Polri) to the KPK as its investigations director, after Endar allegedly refused to indict Anies, citing a lack of evidence. As the conflict escalated, Polri chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo, a key Jokowi ally, issued a directive returning Endar to his position at the KPK.

This early tussle between Polri and the KPK suggested conflicting strategies within the ruling coalition over the tactics of criminalisation. In recent weeks, tensions between the police and the KPK have boiled over again as Polri pursue Firli Bahuri on charges of blackmailing Syahrul Yasin Limpo, forcing Firli to temporarily step down as KPK head. The timing here is instructive: as Jokowi has consolidated his support behind the Prabowo ticket—instead of that of his nominal PDI-P party colleague, Ganjar Pranowo—Firli Bahuri’s criminalisation project has been brought to heel.

Though the outcomes of the 2024 elections are still uncertain, there is space for critical debate over how competitive Indonesia’s elections really are, given the level of intervention in the nomination process, let alone the election itself. With Jokowi’s support now consolidated behind a single candidate, all eyes will be on the extent to which the President’s considerable resources, authorities and financiers will be leveraged for the Prabowo–Gibran campaign. Ultimately, 2024 will be remembered as the election that took place in part on the narrow terms, and in line with the interests of, the outgoing president.

Failure to launch: street-based social movements

Why have these efforts to narrow political contestation been so potent in their effects? Where are the sources of dissent and opposition that were once so characteristic of Indonesia’s democracy?

Writing in 2022, Ken Setiawan argued that Indonesia’s democracy still shows signs of “democratic resilience”, as evidenced by the ability of women’s organisations to agitate effectively for the long-delayed Law on the Eradication of Sexual Violence. But the early years of Jokowi’s second term has also seen a string of attempts by civil society, particularly Indonesia’s student movement, to reject technocratic policy-based engagement, in favour of reigniting the kinds of street-based protests movements that characterised reformasi. The #ReformasiDikorupsi (#ReformCorrupted) protests triggered by a suite of regressive legislative moves were some of the largest Indonesia has seen in decades, with up to 50,000 students across 40 cities in 18 provinces.

But why did these protests fail to reassert the political power of reformist movements? Certainly, conflicts about tactics among the university-based Student Executives Bodies (Badan Eksekutif Mahasiswa, or BEM), which played a key role in coordinating the protests, weakened the movements. But the student protests were also confronted with extraordinary levels of repression. In the 2019 mobilisations, 719 were injured and five high-school aged protesters were killed. Protests against the Omnibus Law on Job Creation in 2022 saw nearly 7,000 student protestors arrested. Intelligence counter-operations gave credibility to government accusations that the students had been infiltrated by violent terrorists and anarchists, muddying the moral waters for the students’ cause. Finally, pressured with sanctions by the education ministry, university leadership threatened to expel students who took part in anti-government protests.

Oppositional movements have been further handicapped by the Jokowi administration’s effective disorganisation of the activists and prominent professionals capable of mobilising public opinion. As the distain of the #ReformasiDikorupsi campaigners made clear, many former 1998 activists, such as Teten Masduki and Budi Arie Setiadi, have abandoned the movement for well-positioned careers in or supporting the Jokowi administration. There, they have been an important presidential mouthpiece to Indonesia’s progressive social forces, translating Jokowi’s political intent and disarming civil society in its efforts to counter the government’s agenda.

Kanjuruhan as an emblem of weakened civil society

These factors help to explain the inability of oppositional and protest movements to respond on a national scale even when massive and potentially triggering events occur. One such event was the Kanjuruhan Stadium tragedy. In October 2022, 135 men, women and children died when a joint command of Malang police and national police (Polri) tactical officers (Korps Brigadir Mobil, or Brimob) shot tear gas into an overcrowded stadium of families and supporters, generating international media scrutiny. It was the second-deadliest stadium disaster in football history.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to East Java’s streets in the weeks and months after the livestreamed tragedy, calling for justice and police accountability. As Indonesia reeled in shock, protesters across the country gathered in tearful solidarity for the victims. Photos of banners calling for justice in international football stadiums in Munich and Dortmund immediately went viral. In Malang, demonstrators expected that the intense pressure would culminate in nationwide demonstrations that “would tear up the pavement in protest for Kanjuruhan”, as one journalist on the ground related to me.

Jokowi’s inner circle quickly recognised that if left unmanaged, the Kanjuruhan incident could bring forth another violent spell of anti-government protests. The president’s trusted inner circle ran a concerted campaign to control the fallout. Stifling calls for the police chief to stand down, Jokowi toured the stadium, shifting the blame to the country’s ageing sports infrastructure. Erik Thohir, minister for state-owned enterprises and Jokowi’s favoured candidate for head of the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI), flew to Geneva to orchestrate a visit by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to Jakarta. The national police chief, Listyo, immediately transferred the Malang and East Java chiefs to Jakarta, blaming football hooliganism for the police response.

Commissioners on Indonesia’s National Police Commission (Kompolnas), once imagined as Indonesia’s police oversight body, leapt to the force’s defence, contesting every detail of the event put forward by civil society. Meanwhile, witnesses and victims’ families were subject to harassment by local police and intelligence officers. When digital media platform New Naratif released a viral video forensically dissecting the actions of the officers on the pitch, journalists found their WhatsApp online messaging accounts hacked.

Driving the protestors’ optimism was that the Kanjuruhan massacre had occurred in a dangerous moment of unprecedented public scandal for the Indonesian police. August 2022 had seen Inspector General Ferdy Sambo, a two-star general heading up Polri’s internal affairs bureau (Propam), arrested for ordering the execution of his adjutant Brigadier Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat, by fellow aide Richard Elizer Pudihang Lumiu, after Yosua was alleged to have been sexually involved with Sambo’s wife, Putri Candrawathi.

As the Sambo drama unfolded, a series of social media leaks and rumours emerged linking the general to everything from a secret unofficial hit squad to a major online gambling consortium . A number of human rights organisations such as Amnesty International reasserted demands for root and branch police reform. But for the clutch of NGOs working closely with Polri to aid the police’s technical implementation of the Law on the Eradication Against Sexual Violence—2022’s major progressive victory—speaking out on Kanjuruhan was incredibly challenging.

Concurrently, digital media reporters observed how, as the Sambo trial ramped up, traffic on the Kanjuruhan articles shrunk. Journalists’ attempts to reignite public interest in the disaster dwindled as the Sambo trial increasingly transfixed the nation. Meanwhile, the early allegations implicating Sambo in wider structures of institutional violence and corruption never re-emerged in the public eye. Instead, the trial assumed a soap opera storyline in which Sambo was presented as the quintessential “bad apple”, and his wife the scheming victim. Yosua was the upstanding officer, son and husband, and Richard the penitent accused begging for public redemption.

The climax of the trial came when the court handed down a stunning sentence of death to Sambo for the premeditated murder of Yosua. The courtroom drama had a direct and depleting effect on calls for accountability in Kanjuruhan. The anticipated public protests in solidarity with Kanjuruhan never materialised and the public demands for justice for Malang simply ebbed away. This meant that while Sambo was publicly excoriated (and less than six months later, his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment) the structural impunity that led to the Kanjuruhan tragedy was effectively preserved.

The political economy of the middle-income trap

For many familiar with Indonesian politics, the idea that Indonesia’s democracy is experiencing a marked decline is not new. After all, the social groups aligned with reformasi have long been marginalised, and scholars have charted diverse drivers for Indonesia’s democratic decline: the weaponisation of state institutions to assail opponents; the rise of a polarising Islamic populism and the government’s heavy-handed efforts to weaken it; a fragmented civil society beset by divisions on issues of religious ideology; the longstanding weakness of the organised left; and the Indonesian public’s own ambivalence about liberal democratic norms amid deep-rooted and growing social inequality.

But the debate about the drivers of Indonesia’s contemporary democratic regression has neglected the underlying structural drivers of democratic decline. I argue that the narrowing of political contestation in the Jokowi era is the ruling coalition’s response to a political problem inherent to Indonesia’s much-vaunted middle-income status.

We are often reminded that since the fall of authoritarianism and the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, tens of millions of people have been moved out of poverty. But what have the poor moved into? The past 20 years have seen the dramatic expansion of what Hall Hill has called Indonesia’s “precariously non-poor”, an economic group who are no longer poor but who also have not yet prospered.

The World Bank alternatively refers to this socio-economic stratum as Indonesia’s “aspiring middle class”—a term that is something of a misnomer. For this group, the economic security of middle-class status is still out of reach, raising doubt over the extent to which it is truly “aspirational”. The Bank argues that this group’s continued social mobility depends on the government’s ability to deliver better services (and arguably, although this goes unmentioned by the Bank, better labour conditions).

These are immense tasks for any administration, let alone one experiencing Indonesia’s current political and economic challenges. At 44% of the Indonesian population, this “precariously non-poor” are arguably Indonesia’s largest voting cohort yet, their “vast and disparate” features mean they are unable to appreciate their common political interests. The aspirational but vulnerable nature of Indonesia’s working poor is front of mind for President Jokowi, who has made improving government services—including public transport infrastructure, the expansion of social welfare, access to health and higher-quality education—the signature policies of his administration.

But upgrading reforms such as these require an institutional sophistication and temporal horizon that are far more difficult in complexity than the previous transition from low to middle income status. More importantly, as the political scientists Richard F. Doner and Ben Ross Schneider argue, the middle-income trap lies in the necessity for “extraordinary collective action and coalition building” across deep social cleavages and inequalities for “benefits that will only emerge in the medium or long term”.

In Indonesia, there are immense barriers to establishing the political pacts required to forge such reforms. The Indonesian state has been moulded to protect oligarchic interests, and faces a challenge in shifting these interests in service of “better government services”, as the World Bank puts it. Consider education, a sector critical to the socio-economic mobility of the precariously non-poor. Research by Andrew Rosser, Phil King and Danang Widoyoko has examined the prospect of quality reforms in Indonesia’s education bureaucracy, concluding that despite urgent shifts in policy to upgrade education quality, the inability of the political elites to challenge vested interests means that contestation “has been settled in favour of predatory elites”.

Such is the fragmentation of the “aspiring middle class” that poor government services and the lagging pace of reform only becomes problem for rule when parts of this “dangerous class” become political mobilised. This occurred during Prabowo’s 2014 and 2019 presidential campaigns, as Jokowi’s challenger spoke darkly of corrupt elites stealing away the economic opportunities of the Indonesian people.

This is not to suggest that Prabowo’s ultra-nationalist populism offered elements of the precariously non-poor an alternative vehicle for their interests, but that he effectively “politicised” their inequality within a framework of ultra-nationalist populism.

The political consequences of inequality were not lost on Jokowi or his political coalition. In an interview in his first six months of office, Jokowi admitted that at 0.43, Indonesia’s Gini coefficient for income inequality—the fastest rising in the region—was “for me…dangerous”.

This predicament is deeply implicated in the administration’s second-term political strategy. While Jokowi tried to deal with inequality by promoting various social welfare measures and pursuing economic growth, he also tackled the political problem: namely, the political candidacies and movements that sought to mobilise inequality as an issue. As such, critical to the maintenance of Jokowi’s rule was the 2019 co-optation of Prabowo into Jokowi’s government and a concerted legal and social purge of so-called “Islamist” forces, dismantling the mobilisational structures of the opposition. These strategies have left Indonesia without a coherent opposition, consolidating the ruling coalition and giving it free rein to reverse the key victories of reformasi.

Thus, what has broadly been understood in the literature as “democratic decline” can best be interpreted as a set of political dynamics set in motion by the underlying necessity to politically manage the aspirations of the precariously non-poor, and keep them harnessed to the government’s model of national development. Whatever regime takes power in the future, managing the aspirations of Indonesia’s new precarious non-poor will be a fundamental project of rule for many years to come.

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Before the election of Joko Widodo as Indonesia’s president in 2014, Indonesian politics was regarded by many observers as being marked by relatively negligible levels of polarisation. This depolarisation flowed from the collusive practices of party elites, which neutralised ideological differences by incorporating opposition parties into the cabinet and preserving wide access to rents. While parties’ backgrounds had ideological components, their behaviour in parliament was most consistent with a patronage logic. Without clear partisan lines at the elite level around which voters might build political identities, polarisation within the electorate seemed unlikely to emerge.

That changed over the course of Widodo (Jokowi)’s first term, especially during the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election and its aftermath. Polarisation, its causes, and its consequences quickly became a major focus of scholars of Indonesian politics as the mobilisation of voters on ideological appeals seemed to become a more prominent element of Indonesian politics.

Yet in Jokowi’s second term this polarisation seemed to dissipate, as the one-time standard bearer of Widodo government opponents, Prabowo Subianto, was coopted into the president’s cabinet, and the government’s struck at hardline Islamic groups’ ability to mobilise. Instead of polarisation, the reversion to the collusive mean—and the potentially anti-democratic implications of a government “counter-polarisation” effort—emerged as the more dominant story.

That the atmosphere of partisanship seemed to emerge and dissipate with such ease during the Jokowi years prompts us to revisit questions that scholars grappled with in 2019 about what lay behind it.

Ross Tapsell’s careful studies of Indonesian media suggested that as Indonesian news became increasingly obsessed with “berita hoaks”—fake news—and fears of polarisation, the concerns of Indonesia’s educated, online elite were being projected onto the nation as a whole. Eve Warburton saw the divide differently: in her analysis, social media chatter “reflect[ed] the terms on which the election was actually being fought”—voters really did disagree in fundamental ways about the political figures, questions of tolerance, and regime goals that were at stake in the national election.

Can the polarisation that emerged during the Jokowi years be attributed to deep and abiding differences in political outlooks among voters? Or was it the result of ephemeral partisanship mobilised in a top-down fashion by elites at the ideological poles? If these dynamics exist in combination, is there reason to believe that the sources of polarisation are there waiting to be mobilised again?

In a new article published at the Journal of East Asian Studies, we bring original survey research to bear on these questions. Our starting point was that if polarisation in Indonesia was driven by divergent political attitudes within the electorate, such differences would not be driven by left–right ideological divides or by longstanding party loyalties, given the relative marginality of economic ideology in structuring politics, and the very low rates at which voters identify with parties.

Instead, we turn to the concept of resentment, which has proven a powerful predictor of political polarisation over cultural issues in other major democracies. We designed a survey that sought to measure the prevalence and the electoral effects of key types of resentment that existing scholarship has proposed as central features of Indonesian politics: resentment of Chinese-Indonesian and non-Muslim minorities, resentment of Java, and resentment based on urban–rural divides.

Our results show that resentful attitudes are concentrated among sections of the electorate, and that there is a consistent relationship between resentment and support for the presidential candidacy of Prabowo Subianto in 2019. This suggests that years of polarised vote returns have their roots in longstanding and perhaps permanent cleavage lines.

At the same time, our study also suggests that resentments can come and go. Once-fundamental divides, like the bitter conflicts over Java’s demographic weight and consequent domination of politics, appear to be in terminal decline. But resentments around the status of Indonesia’s Chinese and non-Muslim minorities appear to have a permanent place in the political landscape—and if anything appear most pronounced among the younger voters, whose political socialisation is increasingly occurring through social media. As Indonesia looks beyond the Widodo presidency, our research suggests that resentment towards Chinese and non-Muslim minorities looks to be a potential target of political candidates’ mobilisational efforts in the years to come.

The what and where of resentment

In political terms, resentment involves a belief that out-groups are receiving symbolic or material benefits that should rightfully have been given to more-deserving in-groups.

Resentment studies in public opinion began with the study of racial resentment in the United States. Recognising that surveys that framed race in biological terms might not elicit honest answers, political scientists Donald Kinder and Lynn M. Sanders developed an index of what they called “racial resentment.” Their framework avoided measuring overt racial animus and instead approached racial attitudes in terms of beliefs about deservingness, merit, and fairness.

In its original formulation, the racial resentment index consisted of four questions, coded according to an agreement scale. A representative question asked whether respondents agreed that “Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.” Respondents who agreed were scored as having higher levels of racial resentment, something which other scholars have shown is predictive of their political preferences. Recently, scholars have proposed other forms of resentment, including those based on gender and place, as predictors of a similar set of political beliefs and attitudes.

Resentment is, in short, a portable construct: far from being limited to racial division in the United States, resentments can form around many different social identity lines. In extending the resentment framework to the Indonesian context, we drew on existing scholarship to identify four foci of resentment.

The first two of these are what we label mobilised resentments: that is, those that have been actively appealed to by political campaigns in recent years. These are, respectively, religious resentment—more specifically resentment of Indonesia’s minority Christian population—and resentment directed at ethnically Chinese Indonesians.

Both of these resentments have a long history in Indonesian politics and have featured prominently in major political campaigns. Many Indonesians believe that Chinese Indonesians have access to unearned material resources, part of a broader view that the several million ethnically Chinese residents of Indonesia are synonymous with the handful of Suharto-era tycoons.

In addition to these mobilised resentments, we identify two latent resentments: that its, those that whose expression has been more muted in electoral politics. These are, first, resentment of the island of Java, and second, a more generic resentment of better-off places, which we term, “regional resentment.”

Accounts of Indonesia’s politics in the years close to independence nearly always noted that tensions between Java and the so-called Outer Islands were a highly salient dimension of politics. While the balance between Java and the Outer Islands was contested in the past, it is less common today for national political figures to mobilise around the Java–Outer Island divide. Because of its long history in Indonesian politics, however, resentment of Java may remain a feature of public opinion.

In addition to resentment at the cultural and economic preponderance of Java specifically, we also tested inter-regional resentment more generally. While Indonesia’s post-New Order decentralisation reforms have reduced inter-regional inequality, overall inequality between regions remains high. These conditions suggest that regional resentment ought to be an important political force in places that might have a claim on being disadvantaged—and that these should be present not only in the Outer Islands, but also in poor regions of Java.

Measuring resentment

We developed a survey instrument to measure levels of the four resentments in the Indonesian voting age population that drew upon the methods originally used to capture racial resentment in the US context.

In a nationally representative survey of 1,520 voting-aged Indonesians fielded in February 2019 by Indikator Politik Indonesia, respondents were asked to respond on a five-point scale—from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”—to a set of statements that captured resentful attitudes.

For example, we probed resentment of Chinese-Indonesians with statements like “Chinese-Indonesians have more opportunities in life than pribumi [non-Chinese Indonesians]” and “Chinese-Indonesians have too much influence in Indonesian politics”. Resentment against religious minorities was gauged with statements such as “In Indonesia, Muslims are treated unfairly by members of other religions”, while propositions such as “too many people from Java hold important posts or are influential in the central government” and “the local government should pay more attention to people from here than they do to newcomers and transmigrants” were considered to signify anti-Java and inter-regional resentment respectively.

We compared the results of resentful feelings between members of out-groups and in-groups. On the Chinese questions, we compared the responses of Chinese–Indonesians to non-Chinese Indonesian Indonesians (often referred to in Indonesia by the politically-charged term pribumi), between Muslims and non-Muslims on the question of religious resentment, and between residents of Java and residents of other islands on questions of Java resentment, and between residents of local government area capitals with those from those in the hinterland.

Our results show that across every area of resentment, our easily-coded “in-groups”—such as Java residents, residents of district capitals, and Muslims—show higher levels of resentment than members of corresponding “out-groups”: those living off Java, residents of rural districts, and non-Muslims. (While we lack a specific measure of Chinese Indonesians, we can estimate that this holds for Chinese-Indonesians too).

But we find that resentments are not evenly distributed across either the population as a whole or the in-group population. Age, gender and income all appear to correlate with different resentment scores—some subtle, some marked.

First, there is the question of the influence of income on resentment, an interesting one given the debate about voters’ grievances over socioeconomic inequality have been diverted into cultural resentment targeted at minorities. In analysing the anti-Chinese and anti-Christian mobilisation of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial campaign, Ian Wilson has proposed that the resentments on display were epiphenomena of a class conflict triggered by the governor’s slum clearance policy.

In aggregate, resentment scores do not exhibit a strong linear trend as income increases (with the exception of resentment of Java, which decreases as income decreases). Yet absolute income levels are misleading: a particular income in one area doesn’t mean the same as in another. If resentment is connected to material grievances, it makes sense to compare respondents doing better and doing worse than others in the same area.

With this in mind, we compared the responses on our resentment measures between those who earnt more than the official local minimum wage versus those who earnt less. We find that aggregate resentment is mostly higher among respondents earning less than the provincial minimum wage, and that effect of earning below this threshold in increasing aggregate resentment is much larger for men than for women (with the exception of resentment of Java). We find this evidence suggestive of a partially material basis for resentment. Since this relationship is much stronger among men, however, it is reasonable to conclude that identity components play an important role in resentment.

Yet the effects of income appear not to be uniform across different foci of resentment. We found that respondents below the minimum wage for their province were more likely to report higher scores on religious resentment and resentment of Java—but not higher regional or anti-Chinese resentment. This is one small piece of evidence against the idea that resentment of ethnic Chinese distracts the poor from their reasonable material grievances, even as it bolsters somewhat the link between poor material circumstances and religious resentment. A key piece of that latter link is in the relatively low economic status of the membership of intolerant religious organisations like the now-banned Islamic Defender’s Front (FPI).

The effects of age on resentment scores are also an important focus, given that one of the signal features of the Indonesian electorate is its youth, with just over half of voters aged under 40. Two prominent effects of age stood out in our survey data: first, older voters are more likely to report higher Java and regional resentment scores, which makes sense because they remember the bygone divides of a bygone political era.

More interestingly, our results suggest that while there is only small variation in anti-Chinese sentiment across generational cohorts, it is in fact the youngest cohorts who are most likely to report anti-Chinese resentment. There are two likely reasons for this. The first is that the period in which young respondents were socialised into politics—the present—has been especially rich with anti-Chinese conspiracy theories. The second is that these cohorts have the greatest exposure to social media, where anti-Chinese conspiracy theories are abundant.

Resentment and the Prabowo vote

What does this mean for electoral politics? We find that each of the four resentments has predictive power for political affiliation, though magnitude of the relationship differs. To operationalise the relationship between resentment and political preferences, we look at the relationship between resentment scores and support for the presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto. We focus on support for Prabowo because his campaign most actively mobilised religious and anti-Chinese resentment.

We find that resentments are strongly predictive of political preferences (see Figure 2 above). Across all four measures, higher resentment was associated with greater probability of supporting Prabowo in the 2019 presidential election. This holds even after adjusting for respondents’ religion, ethnicity, age, income, education level, and province of residence. We find that with both measures, resentment is associated with preferences for Prabowo and the group of non-government parties that nominated him in 2019. The two currently mobilised resentments—of non-Muslims and of ethnically Chinese Indonesians—are much more strongly correlated with political preferences than the un-mobilised resentments of Java and regional disparities.

Conclusion

Exploring the demographics of resentment, we find that resentments are not a straightforward consequence of material concerns, and that high levels of each resentment measure are found in different demographic strata. We consistently found an association between resentment and support for the political right in Indonesia, measuring by both support for Prabowo’s populist political candidacy and by support for opposition parties. All of the resentments pointed in the same direction. We take this as evidence that partisan polarisation, as it was expressed in the 2019 election results, is rooted in longstanding— and perhaps permanent—cleavage lines.

The path of resentments left unmobilised, such as anti-Java and interregional resentments—suggest that the future of mobilised resentments depends on whether interventions or institutions push against these resentments. In the case of religious resentment, its close association with specific organisations means that it may be reduced as a political force by the ongoing crackdown on the FPI and other resentment-fostering organisations. Religious resentment will then become rarer, but it will remain a powerful predictor of political preferences.

Anti-Chinese resentment is not nearly so dependent on particular organisations. Having been central to two consecutive electoral cycles and pervading social media, this resentment has already shaped the politics of the youngest Indonesian voters. As they mature to become political candidates, they are likely to reach into the evergreen discourse of anti-Chinese sentiment, knowing that many in their cohort hold that resentment. This will be a powerful instrument of polarisation in the years to come.

However, the emergence of a new trend known as “counter-polarisation” after 2019, in which politicians and their parties undertake initiatives or manoeuvres in the name of reducing polarisation and easing intra-communal tensions, has an impact on the 2024 presidential race. The first and most visible example of this was Prabowo’s decision to join Jokowi’s cabinet as defence minister in October 2019, despite having campaigned sometimes angrily against his rival in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections.

However, this does not mean that polarisation has vanished entirely. Anies Baswedan has filled the polarisation niche vacated by Prabowo by continuing to appeal to Islamist groups that have long been critical of Jokowi (and at the forefront of religious polarisation). Despite continued mobilisation of this polarising axis, the overall level of polarisation has dropped significantly because resentful nationalists and resentful Islamists are no longer being mobilised by the same campaign. Fear of polarisation has also led to changes in the regulations on political speech, with reducing polarisation being an important justification for the government and DPR’s decision to shorten the 2024 election campaign period.

Overall, polarisation appears to be decreasing. This demonstrates that, while polarisation in Indonesia has a mass base rooted in long-standing and permanent political cleavage lines, it does not divide society frontally if political elites do not exploit it for electoral purposes. Polarisation in Indonesia is not dead; it is simply resting.

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For historians of gender and sexuality, sources about queer history are often elusive. This is even more so in the context of Southeast Asia, where the type of source material that might be available in archives in the Global North is not always readily accessible. Much historical research on homosexuality in Europe, for instance, relies on extensive legal archives that detail court cases about relationships that were deemed illegitimate under moral legislation.

Historians interested in Southeast Asian locales often do not have this kind of material at their disposal. This is not always a matter of existence of archives: in pre-Independence Indonesia, for instance, same-sex relationships were not officially outlawed, even though Java was the scene of a much-publicised “homosexual scandal” among European men in the late 1930s.

Yet sometimes traces of the queer past show up in unexpected places. When I was doing archival research for my dissertation about girls’ education in the Dutch East Indies, this was certainly the case. There were only a few sentences, handwritten in an unassuming school notebook that was kept in a 14th century monastery, but they revealed a possible love affair between two Indonesian women in 1933.

A special friendship

I was skimming through the archives of a Roman Catholic sisters’ congregation at the Erfgoedcentrum Nederlands Kloosterleven, the Heritage Centre for Dutch Monastic Life. The Zusters van het Gezelschap van Jezus, Maria en Josef [Sisters of the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph] had opened several girls’ schools in the Minahasa region of Sulawesi in the early 20th century, and I was looking for information about the school curricula. In a visitation report, written by a Mother Superior who had travelled from the Netherlands to Indonesia for an inspection, I found the following reference:

“As far as concerns special friendships, just before my visit one case had been discovered by the Superior, of the Native Sister Dorithea with one of the boarding girls. We, the Superiors, found that the case was very serious and after consulting with the four of us, we concluded we should expel Sr. Dorithea.”

In religious women’s communities, there was often considerable anxiety about so-called “special friendships”. Leadership of monasteries were worried about the moral implications of romantic, and possibly sexual, relationships between women. Their main fear, however, was that close individual relationships, romantic or not, could undermine sisters’ and students’ loyalty to the community.

The friendship in question had developed between a sister of Indonesian descent and a girl who likely studied at the sisters’ hospital in the village of Tomohon to become a nurse. The sister, who was one of the first Minahasan women to join the order, was allowed to stay with the community only after the intervention of the local priest, who wanted to give her another chance. It is of course possible that the relationship between sister Dorithea and the student was indeed a very intense friendship that distracted them from their daily tasks at the hospital and the monastery. It is just as likely, however, that this was a lesbian relationship, especially judging from the response of the monastery leadership:

“The girl was sent away immediately. And as far as concerns Sister D.’s state of mind, she is terribly sorry, says that she deserves to be sent away and is asking for leave so she can do penance, and she promised me that something like this will never happen again.”

Obviously, the discovery of their relationship, whatever its nature, uprooted the lives of both sister Dorithea and the nursing student, who was expelled from school and may not have had the chance to follow secondary education again. Sister Dorithea was also in a vulnerable position, as many of her white peers doubted Indonesian women’s suitability as sisters in the first place. While the archive does not reveal any further information about either the sister or her friend, they clearly had to live with the consequences of their relationship.

Queer archives as resistance

Small archival findings such as these may seem insignificant: they reveal very little about actual queer women’s experience, and are easily written off as quaint remnants of a long-gone past. Yet, reclaiming history can be powerful in the context of the current backlash against LGBTQ+ communities in contemporary Southeast Asia. For today’s activists, knowing that there are many traces of a queer past in can be a source of solace and strength.

While LGBTQ+ people have become more visible in Indonesian society in recent years, there have been uncountable attempts, legal or otherwise, to further marginalise this already vulnerable group. The most prominent example of recent legislation that severely restricts the minority rights is the new Indonesian penal code, which effectively criminalises any sexual encounter outside the framework of heterosexual, state-sanctioned marriage. Upheld by President Joko Widono’s government as a necessary reform of Indonesia’s legal system, the new penal code has drawn sharp criticism from human rights organisations in Indonesia and beyond.

In public discourse, homophobic political and religious leaders have often attempted to frame LGBTQ+ Indonesians either as victims of an illness or as members of a dangerous movement intent on undermining the state. In many of these instances, homosexuality and gender-nonconformity are portrayed as somehow “new” to Indonesia, a foreign and modern invention that is now seeping into the framework of Indonesian society. The uncovering of stories about LGBTQ+ experiences from the past, however fragmentary, can be used as a tool for resisting these narratives.

Many Southeast Asian cultures have long traditions that rely on fluid performances of gender, and today’s queer community is actively preserving more recent queer histories as well. An inspiring example of how activists can reclaim local pasts is the expansive website Queer Indonesia Archive, a volunteer initiative that is “committed to the collection, preservation and celebration of material reflecting the lives and experiences of queer Indonesia.”

Since its establishment in 2020, the team of volunteers that run the website have done important work in digitising queer magazines from the Suharto era and beyond. The website also holds a collection of personal photographs, correspondence and print articles about topics such as queer nightlife in 1990s Jakarta and the early HIV crisis. It is a unique repository of queer Indonesian history that is usually hidden from the public eye.

This summer, Queer Indonesia Archive published the exhibition Letters from Ger, which traces the correspondence between a lesbian woman in 1960s Jakarta and an editor of the pioneering American lesbian magazine The Ladder. In the introduction to Ger’s story, Yulia Dwi Andriyanti described the letters as “a reflective journey about queer feelings and their role in opening up possibilities to contest a system that continually negates and erases queer identities and feelings. To embrace these possibilities, it is essential to acknowledge queer feelings from the very beginning.”

This is exactly where the power of queer history making lies. Making visible the experiences of queer people in the past is a form of resistance against a dominant discourse that aims to frame their very existence as a novel aberration. In one of her videos Kai Mata, a singer-songwriter who has repeatedly gone viral with her queer anthems, sings: pelangi juga bersinar di langit kita—rainbows also shine in our skies. Even an archival find of a few lines can remind us that this motto rings true for the past as well as today’s world.

The author would like to thank the QIA team for their help with this article.

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The Indonesia–China relationship has attained new dimensions over the past few years. The recent opening of the Jakarta–Bandung high speed rail (HSR)—a joint venture between Chinese and Indonesian state-owned enterprises—marks a significant milestone in bilateral relations.

The big-ticket project has overcome dissent to be embraced as an item of national pride. Indonesian government bodies are no longer shy about showing their closeness to Chinese counterparts, as political sensitivities become a thing of the past. State elites’ social media campaigns have recast Chinese capital as an important element in Indonesia’s highly-celebrated development plans—from investments in electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing and digital technology, the extension of the HSR route from Bandung to Surabaya and investments in the energy transition, to the controversial Rempang eco-city development.

Some observers, including Dewi Fortuna Anwar, have interpreted Indonesia’s improved relationship with China as an outcome of Jakarta’s hedging strategy and economic pragmatism. As a recent column in The Economist argued, the latter impetus is related to President Jokowi’s background as a businessman, who views the Indonesian national interest in narrow economic terms, and courts whoever will bring beneficial deals.

But the improved economic relationship is underpinned by more than economic pragmatism or individual leaders’ idiosyncrasies. It is China’s distinct modes of engagement that have been so appealing to Indonesian elites. Modes of engagement, in this context, should not be conflated with economic statecraft more generally, or especially with China’s use of coercive economic measures to get other countries to act according to its wishes. Rather, a wide range of political and economic components constitute modes of engagement—and among these components is a country’s overall approach to economic development.

What has been salient in the context of China–Indonesia relations is that China’s approach to development cooperation with Indonesia dovetails with Indonesian development strategies. More importantly, as I argue here, its approach has evidently provided leeway for Indonesian state elites to pursue not only development strategies on national interest grounds, but also to harness development for their political legitimation goals.

Institutional complementarities

Chinese approach to development cooperation is undergirded by particular institutional features: quick decision making; practical, longer-term financing horizons; and openness to cascading negotiations to accommodate host state leaders’ needs.

These features fit perfectly within the varied landscape of Indonesia’s political economy. Indonesia has sought to defend the liberal international economic order, such as through promoting free trade agreements, while at the same time defying WTO rulings against its unilateral imposition of mineral export bans. It commits to fostering private sector engagement in infrastructure, while making way for its state-owned enterprises to crowd out private investment. It invokes the importance of state developmentalism, but still maintains a conservative fiscal policy—something which has long been a stumbling block for the government to fund the development of capital-intensive industries like nickel downstreaming and battery production.

In short, Indonesia’s development problems have long been entangled in openness and economic nationalism, commodity booms and busts, technocracy and politics. In such a policy constellation, Indonesia requires development partners who have high risk tolerances, and who are flexible enough to deal with the swings of the political and policy pendulum. In this regard China has excelled, thanks to its loose fiscal policy and availability of “patient capital” characterised by greater risk tolerance and more willingness to weather policy volatility in the host country, compared to Western and private capital.

In the case of the Jakarta–Bandung HSR, despite controversies surrounding debt and profitability issues, what has been overlooked is that the salient feature of China’s development financing—giving leeway for state elites to make concessions through cascading negotiations—has ceded Indonesian top state elites political legitimacy.

In orthodox development practice, as easily traced in OECD or World Bank documents, country ownership in a development project has long been the first and utmost major principle. The bottom line is that the recipient or host country must have a direct stake in aid programming and sense of ownership at all stages. In practice, Indonesia has found that multilateral donors and Western governments try to control what gets on the development agenda and project scoping, and are reluctant to cede the agenda in their aid and investment programs to the Indonesian government as overtly as China is.

China’s financing modality, namely equity-based investments such as in the case of the Jakarta–Bandung HSR, regardless of ambiguity in its “business-to-business” financing terms, it is a fact that the Chinese consortium owns 40% of the project and they are also obligated to pay for any cost overruns. A superficial look at distribution of tangible costs and ownership supports the widespread impression that Indonesia is in the driver’s seat, in control of financing decisions and further project development, thus helping boost the political legitimacy of local state elites.

This is a crucial point given that economic nationalism has gained more ground in the country: China’s modes of engagement above all suit the current political climate. This can be sensed in Jokowi’s recent statement at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in October 2023, where he remarked that one advantage of the BRI was that it offered “…a synergy that provides ownership for the host country to run its national project independently. A sense of ownership is very important for the sustainability of the project.”

Furthermore, at the heart of relations with China is a productivist logic that embraces state-led development, particularly in resource refining and infrastructure projects, with SOEs situated at the commanding heights of the economy. Such productivism holds a view that state strategic goals—although they may include problems of resource access, social, environmental, and political capital—can be understood as preconditions for long-term market-based economic growth that trickles down into tangible social benefits.

While Indonesian SOEs have been the backbone of the economy, they are also notorious for being inefficient, mismanaged, and for being cash cows for political groups. It is an open secret that SOE commissioners are usually the president’s close allies, and that corporate decision-making processes are not insulated from political intervention.

While many Western investors have fled the country in discontent with its resource nationalism and have shied away from engaging SOEs, Chinese companies came to fill the void. As a result, Chinese investments in Indonesia have extended to value-added activities that are now regarded as the cornerstone of national development. Jokowi and his political allies understand that, in contrast to the norm in the past, loans and state capital are being invested today in downstream sectors and infrastructure projects that can boost productivity and reduce dependency. These initiatives are perceived as a critical step in the ladder towards development.

Chinese capital has thereby given Jokowi leeway to create his own legacy, now distilled to the Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision for developed-country status and the broader goal of economic self-sufficiency.

The Morowali Industrial Park, a monument to mineral resources hilirisasi (downstreaming), and the Jakarta–Bandung HSR are just a half of the story. A series of new deals include the Rempang Eco City, a new industrial park to be home to a quartz sand processing plant and solar panel factory that is a joint venture between Chinese Xinyi Group and the Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority; the China Power-backed 9 gigawatt hydroelectric plant being constructed along the Kayan River in North Kalimantan, meant to power a Chinese-affiliated green industrial park, Indonesia Strategis Industri; a U$1.1 billion electric vehicle (EV) battery factory with the Indonesian Battery Corporation, a joint venture between four major Indonesian SOEs and Korean conglomerates; and a recently-signed MoU between Indonesia’s state electricity company PLN and the State Grid Corporation of China that, along with seven other MoUs, brings total value of Chinese investments in green energy initiatives in Indonesia to U$54 billion.

Looking at this development, it is difficult not to get the impression that the economic interests of Chinese state elites and state companies are comfortably aligned with the Indonesian government’s growth strategy, and vice versa.

In turn, a Western developmental agenda—just and sustainable governance, social welfare and development reform—has been rendered insufficient in this regard. The Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) is a case in point. The US and Japan-led investment plan in energy transition in Indonesia has met political resistance, with the Indonesian government painting the program as representative of a new green colonialism:, as Erick Thohir, Minister for SOEs mentioned in a media interview, “we want this [climate goals] to fit our grand plan, the Indonesian blueprint, not the blueprint of other countries”.

The JETP deal for Indonesia, while expected to comprise U$20 billion in support, consists of less than 1% of grants, with the remainder being loans, something the Indonesian government believes would set a new loan trap for it and other developing countries. Critics of JETP see it as a mere talking shop that falls short on commitment. As senior cabinet minister and Jokowi’s right-hand man Luhut Pandjaitan lamented in a media interview shortly after a recent visit to Washington, “when I went to Washington last month, we explained it (JETP), they said yes, then I said, where the money is for green transition?…They are just talk”.

China’s financing modality in the energy arena—based on a “business-to-business” approach that directly engages PLN—is seen instead as a more feasible solution in Indonesia. China is indeed in a strategic position: with PLN, the monopoly holder of energy transmission and distribution, being the pivotal stakeholder in China–Indonesia cooperation on greening the energy grid, the project can be easily fast tracked.

Looking ahead

Operating under specific logic of accumulation, Chinese capital can have a distinct impact by helping develop domestic sectors that are otherwise unattractive to global private capital. Of course, this productive model might be more practical than Western-development paradigms, but it is no more participatory or inclusive. Some projects have perpetuated long-held grievances among local populations that see themselves marginalised and dispossessed by the manifestations of Indonesia’ state-led growth strategy.

Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights, for example, found alleged human rights violations carried out by joint forces of police, military, and public order officers as part of the efforts to make way for the Eco-City development in Rempang island. With the presidential race heating up, the “China card” might be played again. Yet, just as happened in many countries, the sentiment does not last long soon after a newly-elected leader comes to power. There will always be old answers to new problems, and China will always be around.

As of now, presidential frontrunner Prabowo Subianto—who once used the China issue to attack Jokowi in the 2019 presidential election—has made it clear that he will continue Jokowi’s foreign policy and key national projects. This implies that Chinese investments will continue to ramp up. While politicians are occupied with the Palestinian cause to appeal to Muslim voters, Prabowo showcased his recent meeting with the Indonesia–Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce via his personal Instagram account. On the other side, Prabowo’s opponent Ganjar Pranowo, , offered a rather neutral statement, promising that he would navigate the growing US–China rivalry if he is elected. Meanwhile the opposition-linked underdog candidate Anies Baswedan’s stance on Indonesia–China relations is still unclear, and his team have made fewer comments concerning China.

However, despite the differences in their public statements, it is interesting to see how China is no longer identified in a mere ideological context, but seen as a key development partner. It is still unclear what shaped this development. Is it partly because China’s public diplomacy works well? Or is it because the material interests of elite networks—with whom these three contenders are affiliated—are increasingly interlinked with China?

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Every year when the monsoon season in Bangladesh ends, risky journeys of Rohingya refugees take off en route to Malaysia. Not all passengers who embark from the refugee camps near the Bangladesh–Myanmar border reach their destination alive. In November 2023, five boats with more than 1,100 emaciated refugees arrived in different places along the coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

On two occasions local villagers at the landing sites have pushed the boats back to sea instead of providing much-needed help to the men, women and children after their hazardous journeys. Footage captured by BBC Indonesia in Muara Batu, North Aceh district, shows hundreds of tired-looking Rohingya migrants sitting on the beach.

Villagers are handing them plastic bags of food while telling them to return to boats, shouting, and threatening them with beatings. Another video published by Tribun Aceh shows Rohingya migrants being physically dragged back to their boat. The villagers had taken instant noodles and other food items to the refugee boat, which the passengers then threw in the water, demanding instead to be allowed to come on land. In late November, students in Aceh took to the street to speak out against the reception of Rohingya, thereby also alleging the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for having conspiratorial motifs.

This behaviour stands in stark contrast to previous acts of kindness and hospitality extended to the Rohingya arriving in Acehnese waters in 2015 and 2020, which earned the locals international respect. According to Acehnese maritime customary law, fishermen are obligated to assist anybody in distress at sea. The ancient institution of Panglima Laot plays a crucial role in ensuring maritime safety and is built on reciprocity and mutuality. There is also the Acehnese tradition of peumulia jamee, honouring guests.

The recent hostile behaviour towards Rohingya was widely reported, with Indonesian media citing many disgruntled locals and, in the process, reinforcing negative stereotypes about the refugees. Some villagers complained about the lack of gratitude shown by previous Rohingya who had run away from the camps in Aceh where they were being hosted. Others pointed to the possible insults and intercultural misunderstandings if the Rohingya were to stay for long. Perhaps more crucially, the imprisonment of three Acehnese fishermen for people smuggling offences, who had rescued 99 Rohingya from drowning boat a year earlier, stirred up negative sentiments about these recently arrived refugees and towards those who facilitate their journeys.

Lalu Muhamad Iqbal, the spokesperson of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, was quick to direct the blame for the arrival of the Rohingya to the smuggling networks “that are now abusing Indonesia’s kindness and seeking financial gain from refugees without caring about the high risks they are exposing them to”. Associating rescue at sea with the transnational crime of people smuggling is arguably a dangerous race to the bottom that may cost many innocent lives, as similar developments with rescue NGOs in the Mediterranean Sea have shown. The confiscation of rescue vessels and the arrest of rescuers limits the chances of survival for those at distress at sea.

The villagers’ rejection of the recent arrivals and depiction of these events in the media are being used to support the Indonesian authorities’ increasingly hostile position opposing the arrival of more Rohingya in Indonesia. A joint operation of local police, the navy, and the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) is now patrolling the coastal waters, supported by ordinary villagers and fishermen. Protecting borders is prioritised over saving lives.

This approach ignores the reasons for why Rohingya are risking their lives at sea in the first place. Rohingya who eventually land in Aceh start their hazardous journeys in Bangladesh, where close to a million people are currently languishing in squalid camps. The ethnic minority were forced to flee their home country Myanmar following brutal military crackdowns against them in August 2017, which many observers deem an act of genocide.

In 2019, Gambia filed a case in the International Court of Justice in The Hague (The Gambia v. Myanmar) with the support of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. The case alleges that Myanmar’s atrocities against the Rohingya violated various provisions of the Genocide Convention. The final verdict is expected in 2025.

Between 2012 and 2015, approximately 112,500 Rohingya travelled across the Andaman Sea with the help of smugglers. When regional authorities clamped down on smuggling networks in 2015, around 8,000 Rohingya were abandoned at sea by their smugglers for several weeks. The so-called 2015 Andaman Sea crisis was eventually resolved when Malaysia and Indonesia allowed the boats to disembark. Due to intensified border patrols in Bangladesh, the number of departing boats ceased briefly.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several boats tried to reach Malaysia, but at least 22 were pushed back. 2022 and 2023 saw a dramatic increase in the number of boats arriving in Indonesia and Malaysia, leaving the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and NGOs struggling to provide shelter to the refugees. The recent influx of Rohingya in Southeast Asia is also driven by the ration cuts in the refugees camps in Bangladesh. With food rations allocated at as little as US$0.27 per person per day, crime in the camps is unsurprisingly on the rise—and so are irregular departures across the sea.

The latest arrivals in Indonesia have sparked old debates about its obligation toward refugees, as a non-signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. The foreign ministry’s Lalu Muhamad Iqbal claims that on account of that status Indonesia “has no obligation to accommodate refugees”. However, as signatory of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international laws, Indonesia is obliged to rescue people at distress at sea and bring them to the nearest place of safety. The UNHCR has reiterated its pleas for continued compassion and hospitality to support the disembarkation of additional boats that may be on the way.

Despite the disturbing scenes of rejection of refugees broadcast in the media, it is important to also stress that not all members of the local community reject the Rohingya. About 230 people have been taken to an unused plot of land by the residents of Kulam Village. Local authorities asserted that the community would safeguard the refugees and refrain from forcibly returning them to the ocean. However, humanitarian workers are facing pressure from various sides when carrying out their work with the Rohingya.

Given that the region has witnessed frequent arrivals of Rohingya for the last decade, the absence of proper refugee shelters highlights a longstanding problem in Aceh. Mukhtar Yusuf, a village chief, explained the logistical difficulties associated with hosting refugees for longer periods of time. If they remain at the local docks they can, for example, disturb the daily activities of local fishermen.

Despite some cautious criticism by local NGOs and human rights activists of the recent local rejections, it may also be indicative of fatigue among local solidarity networks. For the last ten years, the local population has been the initial responder taking responsibility for the stranded refugees at sea, including bringing them to shore, sometimes even against orders by the Indonesian military.

Ignorance of the suffering of stranded refugees at sea by the responsible Indonesian authorities shows a lack of governmental accountability. Presidential Regulation Number 125/2016 explicitly stipulates that the government has the authority to rescue foreign refugees who are stranded at sea. As an institution specifically assigned to carry out search and rescue activities, Basarnas is responsible for leading such activities, supported by the navy, police, ministry of transportation, maritime security agency (Bakamla), and other related government agencies.

However, rather than conducting search and rescue operations, the Indonesian navy and the maritime police have intensified patrols to detect foreign vessels in Indonesia’s territorial waters. Maritime police officer Iptu Zainurrusydi said that after detection “we are of course taking policies according to existing regulations”. While they have not admitted to conducting pushbacks, there are indications that Indonesia may be now be adopting the deterrence policies of neighbouring Malaysia and Thailand.

With the upcoming 2nd Global Refugee Forum to be held in Geneva on 13–15 December, it will be interesting to see how Indonesia explains its recent reluctance to rescue the Rohingya in distress at sea. It is reasonable to assume that instead of setting a good example, Indonesia will simply point to all the other signatory and non-signatory states around the world that see refugees as enemies to their sovereignty and behave in a similar way.

With the upcoming presidential and legislative elections in Indonesia in February 2024, there is also a risk that this recurring concern about refugees and national security could be exploited to generate a sense of threat and stir up fear and xenophobia.

Prabowo Subianto, one of the three presidential candidates, commented that while he is sympathetic toward the Rohingya plight, he is more concerned about the difficulties faced by the Acehnese hosting the refugees, and the potential impact on the Indonesian economy. Muhaimin Iskandar, running mate to Anies Baswedan, has vowed to pay attention to the plight of the Rohingya, though he did not specifically mention the refugees in Aceh. Other candidates have not yet commented on the issue.

The current lack of progressive ideas and humane solutions for the Rohingya has brought back previously mothballed ideas. One of the suggestions is to transfer the stranded Rohingya to a remote island in order keep them there until a more durable solution can be found, and to prevent social conflict with the locals during the presumably long wait.

Warehousing refugees on isolated islands is not an acceptable solution. This has already been evidenced by the Bangladesh experiment on the silt island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal, where more than 30,000 Rohingya are currently stuck in an island jail. Not only do they fear floods and storms, but they lack decent water supplies, schools and health care and basic freedom.

Given that the “sailing season” for Rohingya has just started, there is a high possibility that in the coming weeks more people will be heading to Indonesia and Malaysia in search for safety and a better life. As long as they cannot return to Myanmar and live there safely, all neighbouring state need to refrain from pushbacks.

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General Subiyanto went from Army Chief of Staff (Kasad) to TNI Chief in just less than a month.

Another was that his military career showcased an interesting track record, having held a number of positions that intersected with Jokowi’s political career. Agus was Commander of Surakarta Military District (Dandim 0735/Surakarta) in 2009–2011 when Jokowi was the mayor of the Central Java city, which is colloquially known as Solo. In 2020 to 2021, he served as a commander of Presidential Security Forces (Paspampres), which provide close personal protection to the president and other VIPs. The same situation happened before when Jokowi appointed Hadi Tjahjanto as TNI Chief back in 2017, a former commander of Adi Soemarno Air Base in Solo (2010–2011). The pattern also occurred in the appointment of Police Chief (Kapolri) Listyo Sigit Prabowo in 2021. Listyo served as Solo’s chief of police (Kapolres) in 2011 and Jokowi’s presidential adjutant in 2014.

The elevation of Agus Subiyanto has completed Jokowi’s concerted effort to cement his political power amidst the upcoming national elections in 2024. As an incumbent in his last year of presidency, Jokowi has gone the extra mile to ensure that he is surrounded only by trusted confidantes who have supported him and will remain loyal to him.

How do we explain the pattern of top military leadership appointments during Jokowi’s presidency? In what ways did the placement of the “president’s men” as top military leaders consolidate Jokowi’s influence over the military?

From mandala politik to personalistic relationships

In the early part of his first term, Jokowi was practically a lame duck president. Though he and then vice president Jusuf Kalla got a majority of votes in the 2014 elections and were supported by a massive number of volunteers, Jokowi soon realised that he must accommodate not only PDI-P, the political party that nominated him, but also other coalition parties.

A collision of interests between Jokowi and parties firstly appeared when Jokowi nominated, then cancelled, the nomination of Budi Gunawan as Police Chief. Budi had been reported to have a suspicious amount of money in his bank account, and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) also announced him as a suspect in a graft case, but his nomination to lead the police force was strongly supported by PDI-P.

Jokowi’s relationship with PDI-P fell into crisis after Widodo cancelled Budi’s nomination after a public outcry. He reacted to the unstable political situation by forging a political alliance with the military, and to some extent the police. Jokowi consolidated support by appointing military figures over whom he could best assert his influence, establishing himself as the centre of influence or mandala politik.

This move was reflected in the appointment of Gatot Nurmantyo as TNI chief in 2015 and Tito Karnavian as police chief in 2016. Jokowi appointed these figures as their alternatives were deemed have relatively closer relations with PDI-P. Jokowi then strengthened his influence over the military by accommodating the expansion of the its role in non-defence affairs, such as signing MoUs of cooperation with various civilian ministries and state-owned enterprises, and to harness its ability to conduct so-called military operations other than war (operasi militer selain perang, or OMSP), particularly on counter-terrorism.

Another hit to Jokowi came during the massive 2016 rallies organised by Islamist groups that coalesced into the 212 Movement, which called for the arrest of Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, the successor of Jokowi as governor of Jakarta, on the charge of religious blasphemy. The problem for the president was that his TNI chief Gatot Nurmantyo seemed to side with the Islamist masses, though Gatot later denied such accusations. On other occasions, Gatot did not hesitate to criticise then defence minister Ryamizard Ryacudu, former army chief of staff, and the national police. Gatot’s maverick, if not erratic, behaviour as TNI chief made Jokowi anxious about whether he could exert full control over the armed forces. On top of that, Jokowi’s relationship with PDI-P remained unstable, due to the political tug of war between the president and party chair, former president Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Later in his first term, however, Jokowi’s relationship with the military and police leadership then started to change, as the president began to surround himself with generals who had long-standing relationships with him. He appointed Hadi Tjahjanto—whom Jokowi had known while he was mayor of Solo —as TNI chief in December 2017. The next two TNI Chiefs, General Andika Perkasa and Admiral Yudo Margono, did not have a long standing personal relationship with Jokowi; both, however, had extensively lobbied the president and PDI-P to secure their nomination. Jokowi also appointed Listyo Sigit Prabowo, another acquaintance of Jokowi since the president’s mayorship in Solo, as police chief in January 2021, and the recent appointment of General Subiyanto as TNI Chief has has brought back the Solo connection at the top of the military.

Another attempt of consolidating the president’s influence over the military is reflected in the routine reassignment, or mutasi, of army territorial commanders.

4 of the current 15 commanders of the army’s Regional Commands (a position known as Panglima Kodam, or Pangdam) are particularly relevant to discuss (see Table 1). In March 2023, Major Generals Mohamad Hasan and Novi Helmy Prasetyo were appointed, respectively, as Pangdam Jaya (Jakarta) and Pangdam Iskandar Muda (Aceh). Part of both men’s tour of duty, interestingly, include Surya Kencana Military Resort (Danrem 061/Surya Kencana) in Bogor, West Java, and service as the Paspampres group commander. Korem 061/Surya Kencana is located in Bogor, a city famous for its botanical gardens—and the palace where President Jokowi often works and holds meetings with foreign leaders and other VVIP guests. Next, Major General Tri Budi Utomo has been appointed Pangdam VI Mulawarman, stationed in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. He is no stranger to Jokowi: Tri was Paspampres commander from August 2021 until June 2022. Last but not least, Major General Widi Prasetijono, current Pangdam IV/Diponegoro based in Semarang, overseeing Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces, once served as President Jokowi’s adjutant and Paspampres commander.

In tandem with Solo connection, tours of duty in Korem 061 Suryakencana, Bogor and in Paspampres seem to have given military officers an advantage in establishing personal connections with, and coming under tutelage of, the president.

Name	Current position (Period)	Solo connection  (Kodim 0735/Surakarta)	Korem 061/Surya Kencana	Paspampres	President’s adjutant
General Agus Subiyanto	TNI Chief, November 2023–present	Commander, 2009–2011	Commander, 2020	Commander, 2020–2021	–
Major General Mohamad Hasan	Commander of Jayakarta Regional Command (Pangdam Jaya), Jakarta, March 2023–present	–	Commander, 2018–2019	Group A Commander, 2016–2018	–
Major General Novi Helmy Prasetya	Commander of Iskandar Muda Regional Command (Pangdam Iskandar Muda), Aceh, March 2023–present	–	Commander, 2019–2020	Group D Commander, 2013–2015	–
Major General Tri Budi Utomo	Commander of Mulawarman Regional Command (Pangdam VI/Mulawarman), East Kalimantan, June 2022–present	–	–	Commander, 2021–2022 Group A Commander, 2018–2019	–
Major General Widi Prasetijono	Commander of Diponegoro Regional Command (Pangdam IV/Diponegoro), Central Java, April 2022	Commander, 2011–2012	–	–	Jokowi’s military aide, 2014–2016

In addition, the appointment of police Commissioner General Nana Sudjana as caretaker governor of Central Java province has raised eyebrows, since Nana previously served as the chief of Solo’s city police force (Kapolres)  in 2010–2011, while Jokowi was still mayor. Meanwhile, Central Java Police Chief Inspector General Ahmad Luthfi was the deputy police chief in Solo in 2011. The situation becomes more intriguing as Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the oldest son of Jokowi and current Mayor of Solo, is running as Prabowo Subianto’s vice presidential candidate and serves as the head of the pair’s campaign team for Central Java and Yogyakarta.

The military under Jokowi

Unwavering support from the military is vital for Jokowi for at least three reasons.

First, support from the military, especially in combination with the support of the police, can help Jokowi to preserve the domestic security stability that Jokowi requires in order to fulfil his economic ambitions.

Thousands of personnel, stationed at regional army territorial commands (Kodam) all over the archipelago, have been mobilised to build roads, bridges, and other facilities. This infrastructure development program is called “TNI Manunggal Membangun Desa” (TMMD), a community service that the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mulyono (2015-2018) once said, “reflected the Indonesian Army’s identity as the army of Indonesian citizens.” The military has also been involved in agricultural projects, providing manpower, equipment, and logistics to open up new farming land in many locations. Moreover, more troops are currently deployed, either on official duty or in side job arrangements, to provide security services in industrial and mining areas as well as palm oil plantations designated by presidential regulations as “national vital objects” (obvitnas). In this sense, Jokowi has provided a convenient arena for the military to maintain its corporate interests in pursuing missions based on its territorial command structure.

Second, the military has been acting as a balancing power against Jokowi’s political opposition. As outlined above, Jokowi’s status as an outsider in national politics initially put him in a tight situation vis-a-vis his political opponents, including his own party, PDI-P. The appointment of retired military officers in many strategic civilian posts signals Jokowi’s intentions to establish a political alliance with the military. Military retirees, or purnawirawan, have been handy in synchronising the military agenda with the president’s interests.

Third, the consolidation of military support for Jokowi will come useful to support his electoral interests in the 2024 elections. President Jokowi himself initially stated he will intervene (cawe-cawe) the elections for the “good of the nation.” The appointment of Agus Subiyanto illustrates the importance of Solo connections as one of the president’s political machines in mitigating the risk of political conflict that ensue in the electoral competition ahead.

Such turbulence could take several forms. For instance, Jokowi might have to face a backlash as an outcome of his strained relationship with PDI-P. The appointment of those military officers can sharpen the distrust of the president’s political opponents towards him and heighten the doubt over the neutrality of security apparatus which is already under heavy scrutiny.

Stagnant transformation, reform regression

Jokowi’s politicking over the military poses at least three potential issues. First, it can distract the Indonesian military from doing its primary duty of national defence. This consequently creates a challenge for the pursuit of military modernisation and transformation. The development progress of TNI’s new defence structures itself, such as the Joint Defence Regional Command (Kogabwilhan), are not yet up to scratch. Kogabwilhan were established in 2019 in three different provinces—Riau Islands, East Kalimantan, and Central Papua—and are designed to integrate army, navy and air force resources. Furthermore, the delay in completing the Minimum Essential Force 2024 target has added another challenge in modernising the Indonesian military.

Second, Jokowi’s attempt to establish his own “gang” within the military can invite resistance from other groups within the armed forces. There is no doubt that Jokowi’s favouritism to those who share with him a Solo connection will sideline other potential figures. Such nepotism undermines the merit system within the TNI.

Third, Jokowi’s cultivation of the Solo connection has triggered doubt over the neutrality of the military as the 2024 elections approach. The main challenge for new TNI chief Agus is to convince the public that the TNI will remain politically neutral. A commitment to uphold TNI non-partisanship stance has been his signature policy since he was appointed as army chief of staff and, almost immediately afterwards, as TNI chief.

The problem is that given Agus’ long acquaintance with Jokowi, and the candidacy of Gibran Rakabuming Raka as Prabowo Subianto’s running mate, such promises ring hollow.

As the end of his presidency draws near, Jokowi’s grip on the military has consolidated. The ascendancy of General Agus Subiyanto as TNI Chief reflects the prominence of the Solo connection as factor in determining intra-TNI elite arrangements. This situation, nevertheless, brings certain risks of degrading military professionalism, inviting internal friction, and sowing public distrust about the TNI’s commitment to neutrality, not to mention the overall development of Indonesia’s defence capability.

The post Jokowi consolidates influence over TNI as elections loom appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

On 25 October Prabowo Subianto registered his candidacy for Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election. This declaration itself carried little surprise. The former general’s presidential ambitions were an open secret; having tried twice and failed in 2014 and 2019, it was clear to anyone who knows a little about Indonesian politics that he would try for the third time in 2024.

While Prabowo declaring his presidential aspiration might have been a non-story, what drew more public interest, and scrutiny, was the announcement that Gibran Rakabuming, president Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) oldest son, would be Prabowo’s vice-presidential candidate.

By giving “permission”—some would say advocating for—his son to run alongside Prabowo, Jokowi has done something that no Indonesian presidents before him had done: he put his child explicitly on a path to the highest elected office in the country. The notoriously corrupt and nepotistic Soeharto gave his children sweet business deals. But the closest his children ever been to a state position was when he appointed one of his daughters, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, as a minister in his last cabinet in 1998.

Megawati Soekarnoputri and her late husband Taufik Kiemas had always been said to have high hopes for their daughter, Puan Maharani, to become vice president or even president. But to date they have never put her on a presidential ticket. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), too, had similarly high ambitions for the political future of his eldest son, Agus. But voters seem to disagree with a father’s glowing hope for his son: Agus was eliminated in the first round of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, and his low electability ratings have never put him within striking distance of a presidential ticket.

Much has been written about this Prabowo–Gibran declaration from the perspective of political dynasticism,  or about how this political manoeuvre has upset even Jokowi’s inner circle and placed him in opposition to his own party, PDI-P and its matriarch Megawati. These are all important and interesting perspectives. But I am interested in something different: not only in Jokowi’s goals and strategies, but more importantly in factors that may hinder or facilitate the attainment of these goals.

Jokowi’s end game

I attribute two end goals to Jokowi’s many political manoeuvres, from co-opting the Constitutional Court, until recently under the leadership of a chief justice who was his brother in-law, to having his son positioned as Prabowo’s running mate.

First, Jokowi is interested in ensuring the security of his political and economic legacies. He will want the new capital city of Nusantara to continue, the “omnibus” Law on Job Creation to stay as the law of the land, for infrastructure development to expand, and for the resource nationalism and downstreaming (hilirisasi) paradigm to thrive, among others.

Second, Jokowi is interested in maintaining some level of political clout. This cannot be separated from the first goal. In a party system where parties do not have distinct and consistent platforms, a leader’s policies often can be advanced and preserved only through personalistic appeals.

But it also goes beyond the first set of policy goals sketched above. The integrity and capacity of the judiciary and the broader criminal justice system have always been a work-in-progress in Indonesia. Maintaining political clout after leaving office means reducing the likelihood of the justice system being turned against one’s self and one’s family—whether unjustifiably as part of a political vendetta, justifiably because a crime one did while in office, or a combination of both.

These two goals intentionally underplay the dynastic component of Jokowi’s manoeuvres. Political dynasticism is unhealthy for democratic life, but it is likely just a means to an end. To some, a political dynasty is a means to ensure their descendants have access to wealth and power. To others, it is a means to ensure that their visions of the society will be implemented. Still, to some others, it is a means to get around the challenge of a low-trust environment: turning to family networks becomes a reasonable strategy when you cannot trust your political allies to act in your interests.

Why Prabowo could be a miscalculation

In attaching his son to Prabowo’s ticket, Jokowi obviously sees it as the most feasible way to achieve his political goals. He likely believes that Prabowo, if winning the election, will secure his policy legacy. He also believes that having his son in the second highest office in the country will maintain, if not expand, the family’s political clout and shield it from political and legal witch-hunts.

Beliefs can turn into reality. But beliefs can also be a miscalculation. There are three reasons why placing his political future in Prabowo might be a serious miscalculation for Jokowi.

The first reason is that even if Prabowo wins the election Jokowi will not have an electoral vehicle, in the form of a party, that he can control to influence policymaking in the parliament (DPR). By supporting Prabowo, Jokowi practically abandoned the party that made him a household name, PDI-P. It is perhaps true that Jokowi was never in control of PDI-P anyway because of Megawati’s role as the party’s matron. But, for better or worse, PDI Perjuangan stood by Jokowi’s side in all of his signature policies―the new capital, the omnibus law, the revisions to the anti-corruption law, the new criminal code, to name a few.

As the political scientist E. E. Schattschneider noted, “[m]odern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.” Jokowi will not be able to influence what is happening and discussed in parliament unless he has a party that he controls. No matter how popular Jokowi is among voters, those DPR members will listen to and obey only their party leaders.

The second reason is that Prabowo is a military figure still popular in the army. As a president, he will have the guns and the troops under his sway—both formally due to his position and informally due to his lasting military influence. It is not at all clear how Jokowi thinks he can persuade a military man to do his bidding once he is outside the circle of power.

To make matters more challenging, Jokowi himself has all but assured the military’s growing influence in Indonesian politics by expanding the opportunities for military officers to hold civilian office. For Jokowi to think that Prabowo the president would be the same man as Prabowo the defence minister would be at best naïve and at worst delusional. One does not simply instruct the men controlling the guns what to do, especially if one no longer has the authority to do so.

Third, with no political vehicle and lacking access to coercive force, Jokowi would have to rely on grassroots movements to stay relevant. Yet, Jokowi is again lacking here. Jokowi is not Abdurrahman Wahid, who commanded tens of thousands of loyal followers in Nahdlatul Ulama. He has voters, but not necessarily the militant supporters one can bring to street demonstrations and put pressure on the government. It remains to be seen whether his supporter networks such as ProJo will stay loyal after he no longer has patronage to distribute.

These are reasons why backing Prabowo could be seen a miscalculation. But it is not my point to argue that it is: backing Prabowo is still a calculated move, albeit a high risk one. One can easily observe at least two scenarios where this calculated risk would yield a high return.

When Prabowo pays off

Just to address the elephant in the room, the first scenario is concerned with the fact that Prabowo is no longer young. If he wins the election he would be sworn into office on 20 October, 2024 at the age of 73, just four years shy of the age of Soeharto when he was forced to step down by student protests. Should Prabowo at some point no longer have the capacity to execute the duties of the presidency, Gibran would have to step up and none of the above challenges regarding the limits on Jokowi’s post-presidential power would matter anymore.

The second scenario is if Jokowi, through some manoeuvres, manages to take control of one of the major parties during a Prabowo presidency. This would give him a political vehicle to influence policymaking and an actual mass base to mould and persuade Prabowo’s administration.

The appointment of Jokowi’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, as chairperson of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) is a move in that direction. But PSI is too small to be effectual. To influence policymaking, Jokowi needs a bigger party. Golkar is an appealing target. It has no ideological platform and no abiding attachment to individual leaders. It is simply attracted to power and whoever wields it. A senior Golkar figure put it bluntly that “Golkar has no talent for being in opposition, because it was born to be in power and manage the government.”

The fact that Jokowi has planted favours among influential Golkar figures by having them as ministers, and that Jokowi’s long-time ally and confidante Luhut Pandjaitan is the chair of the party’s advisory board, could help with such a takeover. In the Golkar party congress scheduled for 2024, Jokowi could support a leadership ticket amicable to his agenda, or he could simply put forward his family to fill in key positions at Golkar, as rumours about Gibran and his son-in-law (and incumbent mayor of Medan) Bobby Nasution leaving PDI-P and joining Golkar seem to suggest.

Another appealing takeover target is perhaps rather surprising: PDI-P. Sooner or later Megawati, 76 years old, has to pass the leadership baton to someone. Puan Maharani is an obvious choice due to her Soekarno ancestry. But many inside the party might want to modernise it and lead it in a different direction. Soekarno and ties with Soekarno would still be important, but as a symbol and ideological compass more than an automatic admission ticket to the leadership position.

Should such an opening happen, Jokowi would be in a position to take advantage of it. It would be a marriage of convenience: Jokowi would have a political vehicle to continue his influence even after leaving office, and PDI-P would have a popular vote getter who is their cadre, though perhaps in the eyes of many in the party, a once-disgraced one.

Conclusion

Jokowi has placed his eggs in the Prabowo basket. But it is unlikely that he will just pray that the basket is good. Jokowi knows that if he could turn his back against the party that had been his home for 20 years, there is no reason why Prabowo could not do the same to him once in power.

He will have to take further steps to protect his investment in Prabowo, whether by institutionalising his volunteer networks or, more likely, by ensuring control of and continuing support from one of the major parties. Only through these steps can Jokowi ensure that his support for Prabowo will not end up as a miscalculation.

The post Jokowi’s post-election game plan appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

On 25 October Prabowo Subianto registered his candidacy for Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election. This declaration itself carried little surprise. The former general’s presidential ambitions were an open secret; having tried twice and failed in 2014 and 2019, it was clear to anyone who knows a little about Indonesian politics that he would try for the third time in 2024.

While Prabowo declaring his presidential aspiration might have been a non-story, what drew more public interest, and scrutiny, was the announcement that Gibran Rakabuming, president Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) oldest son, would be Prabowo’s vice-presidential candidate.

By giving “permission”—some would say advocating for—his son to run alongside Prabowo, Jokowi has done something that no Indonesian presidents before him had done: he put his child explicitly on a path to the highest elected office in the country. The notoriously corrupt and nepotistic Soeharto gave his children sweet business deals. But the closest his children ever been to a state position was when he appointed one of his daughters, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, as a minister in his last cabinet in 1998.

Megawati Soekarnoputri and her late husband Taufik Kiemas had always been said to have high hopes for their daughter, Puan Maharani, to become vice president or even president. But to date they have never put her on a presidential ticket. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), too, had similarly high ambitions for the political future of his eldest son, Agus. But voters seem to disagree with a father’s glowing hope for his son: Agus was eliminated in the first round of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, and his low electability ratings have never put him within striking distance of a presidential ticket.

Much has been written about this Prabowo–Gibran declaration from the perspective of political dynasticism,  or about how this political manoeuvre has upset even Jokowi’s inner circle and placed him in opposition to his own party, PDI-P and its matriarch Megawati. These are all important and interesting perspectives. But I am interested in something different: not only in Jokowi’s goals and strategies, but more importantly in factors that may hinder or facilitate the attainment of these goals.

Jokowi’s end game

I attribute two end goals to Jokowi’s many political manoeuvres, from co-opting the Constitutional Court, until recently under the leadership of a chief justice who was his brother in-law, to having his son positioned as Prabowo’s running mate.

First, Jokowi is interested in ensuring the security of his political and economic legacies. He will want the new capital city of Nusantara to continue, the “omnibus” Law on Job Creation to stay as the law of the land, for infrastructure development to expand, and for the resource nationalism and downstreaming (hilirisasi) paradigm to thrive, among others.

Second, Jokowi is interested in maintaining some level of political clout. This cannot be separated from the first goal. In a party system where parties do not have distinct and consistent platforms, a leader’s policies often can be advanced and preserved only through personalistic appeals.

But it also goes beyond the first set of policy goals sketched above. The integrity and capacity of the judiciary and the broader criminal justice system have always been a work-in-progress in Indonesia. Maintaining political clout after leaving office means reducing the likelihood of the justice system being turned against one’s self and one’s family—whether unjustifiably as part of a political vendetta, justifiably because a crime one did while in office, or a combination of both.

These two goals intentionally underplay the dynastic component of Jokowi’s manoeuvres. Political dynasticism is unhealthy for democratic life, but it is likely just a means to an end. To some, a political dynasty is a means to ensure their descendants have access to wealth and power. To others, it is a means to ensure that their visions of the society will be implemented. Still, to some others, it is a means to get around the challenge of a low-trust environment: turning to family networks becomes a reasonable strategy when you cannot trust your political allies to act in your interests.

Why Prabowo could be a miscalculation

In attaching his son to Prabowo’s ticket, Jokowi obviously sees it as the most feasible way to achieve his political goals. He likely believes that Prabowo, if winning the election, will secure his policy legacy. He also believes that having his son in the second highest office in the country will maintain, if not expand, the family’s political clout and shield it from political and legal witch-hunts.

Beliefs can turn into reality. But beliefs can also be a miscalculation. There are three reasons why placing his political future in Prabowo might be a serious miscalculation for Jokowi.

The first reason is that even if Prabowo wins the election Jokowi will not have an electoral vehicle, in the form of a party, that he can control to influence policymaking in the parliament (DPR). By supporting Prabowo, Jokowi practically abandoned the party that made him a household name, PDI-P. It is perhaps true that Jokowi was never in control of PDI-P anyway because of Megawati’s role as the party’s matron. But, for better or worse, PDI Perjuangan stood by Jokowi’s side in all of his signature policies―the new capital, the omnibus law, the revisions to the anti-corruption law, the new criminal code, to name a few.

As the political scientist E. E. Schattschneider noted, “[m]odern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties.” Jokowi will not be able to influence what is happening and discussed in parliament unless he has a party that he controls. No matter how popular Jokowi is among voters, those DPR members will listen to and obey only their party leaders.

The second reason is that Prabowo is a military figure still popular in the army. As a president, he will have the guns and the troops under his sway—both formally due to his position and informally due to his lasting military influence. It is not at all clear how Jokowi thinks he can persuade a military man to do his bidding once he is outside the circle of power.

To make matters more challenging, Jokowi himself has all but assured the military’s growing influence in Indonesian politics by expanding the opportunities for military officers to hold civilian office. For Jokowi to think that Prabowo the president would be the same man as Prabowo the defence minister would be at best naïve and at worst delusional. One does not simply instruct the men controlling the guns what to do, especially if one no longer has the authority to do so.

Third, with no political vehicle and lacking access to coercive force, Jokowi would have to rely on grassroots movements to stay relevant. Yet, Jokowi is again lacking here. Jokowi is not Abdurrahman Wahid, who commanded tens of thousands of loyal followers in Nahdlatul Ulama. He has voters, but not necessarily the militant supporters one can bring to street demonstrations and put pressure on the government. It remains to be seen whether his supporter networks such as ProJo will stay loyal after he no longer has patronage to distribute.

These are reasons why backing Prabowo could be seen a miscalculation. But it is not my point to argue that it is: backing Prabowo is still a calculated move, albeit a high risk one. One can easily observe at least two scenarios where this calculated risk would yield a high return.

When Prabowo pays off

Just to address the elephant in the room, the first scenario is concerned with the fact that Prabowo is no longer young. If he wins the election he would be sworn into office on 20 October, 2024 at the age of 73, just four years shy of the age of Soeharto when he was forced to step down by student protests. Should Prabowo at some point no longer have the capacity to execute the duties of the presidency, Gibran would have to step up and none of the above challenges regarding the limits on Jokowi’s post-presidential power would matter anymore.

The second scenario is if Jokowi, through some manoeuvres, manages to take control of one of the major parties during a Prabowo presidency. This would give him a political vehicle to influence policymaking and an actual mass base to mould and persuade Prabowo’s administration.

The appointment of Jokowi’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, as chairperson of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) is a move in that direction. But PSI is too small to be effectual. To influence policymaking, Jokowi needs a bigger party. Golkar is an appealing target. It has no ideological platform and no abiding attachment to individual leaders. It is simply attracted to power and whoever wields it. A senior Golkar figure put it bluntly that “Golkar has no talent for being in opposition, because it was born to be in power and manage the government.”

The fact that Jokowi has planted favours among influential Golkar figures by having them as ministers, and that Jokowi’s long-time ally and confidante Luhut Pandjaitan is the chair of the party’s advisory board, could help with such a takeover. In the Golkar party congress scheduled for 2024, Jokowi could support a leadership ticket amicable to his agenda, or he could simply put forward his family to fill in key positions at Golkar, as rumours about Gibran and his son-in-law (and incumbent mayor of Medan) Bobby Nasution leaving PDI-P and joining Golkar seem to suggest.

Another appealing takeover target is perhaps rather surprising: PDI-P. Sooner or later Megawati, 76 years old, has to pass the leadership baton to someone. Puan Maharani is an obvious choice due to her Soekarno ancestry. But many inside the party might want to modernise it and lead it in a different direction. Soekarno and ties with Soekarno would still be important, but as a symbol and ideological compass more than an automatic admission ticket to the leadership position.

Should such an opening happen, Jokowi would be in a position to take advantage of it. It would be a marriage of convenience: Jokowi would have a political vehicle to continue his influence even after leaving office, and PDI-P would have a popular vote getter who is their cadre, though perhaps in the eyes of many in the party, a once-disgraced one.

Conclusion

Jokowi has placed his eggs in the Prabowo basket. But it is unlikely that he will just pray that the basket is good. Jokowi knows that if he could turn his back against the party that had been his home for 20 years, there is no reason why Prabowo could not do the same to him once in power.

He will have to take further steps to protect his investment in Prabowo, whether by institutionalising his volunteer networks or, more likely, by ensuring control of and continuing support from one of the major parties. Only through these steps can Jokowi ensure that his support for Prabowo will not end up as a miscalculation.

The post Jokowi’s post-election game plan appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

On 16 March 2023, a panel of judges decided the outcome of the trial of the five defendants in the Kanjuruhan tear gas case. They were sentenced lightly: two were sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison, one was sentenced to a year, and two were acquitted. Many Indonesians believed that from the beginning, the legal process did not really uncover the extent of wrongdoing in the Kanjuruhan case, and that the legal process was intended to fail on revealing the truth and protecting the perpetrators of crimes in the tragedy. This outcome is considered part of a defective trial process.

A person or group who becomes a victim of a criminal offence experiences a double burden when the system cannot deliver restitution. In addition to being materially harmed, they also experience further victimisation due to systematic rejection by the criminal justice system.  This rejection occurs because there is a view that the victim’s position has been taken over by the state, and this makes the victim’s efforts in fighting for their rights limited. The victim as the one who suffers as a result of a violation of criminal law is limited to providing testimony as a victim and/or witness.

As a result, victims often feel dissatisfied with the charges filed by the Public Prosecutor (known in Indonesia as Jaksa Pidana Umum or JPU) or the judge’s decision because it is considered not in accordance with victims’ values of justice. This occurs as a result of the criminal court system being used to prosecute perpetrators of criminal acts—which are classified as acts against the state—rather than to serve the interests of victims of those criminal acts. The nature of this system means that victims of criminal offences must bear the consequences of legal crimes independently, without intervention from the state.

Restitution

The importance of restitution to provide protection to victims has been stated in Articles 8-11 and 12–13 of the United Nations’ 1985 Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power. Several articles in this declaration state that the perpetrator of the crime or other responsible parties must provide restitution to the victim or their family, including compensation for damaged or lost property, compensation for the recovery of suffering, and other victim rights.

If restitution is not fulfilled by the perpetrator or other stakeholders, then the state should take over in providing compensation to the victim. There are important points in the 1985 declaration regarding the provision of restitution, where the government as the competent authority should review practices, policies and laws to consider restitution as a legal option available in criminal cases, in addition to other criminal sanctions. Inclusion of restitution as an additional punishment can make it easier for judges to pay more attention to the plight of victims.

This movement in turn has resulted in greater awareness of the needs of victims in the criminal justice system. Victims of crime are often ignored in the criminal justice system, even though they should be provided with support, information and assistance by the courts. In this context, restitution is a small part of the effort to fulfil victims’ rights. Through restitution, criminals are held accountable for the losses suffered by the victims of their crimes.

Victim and witness protection regulation

In Indonesia’s 2014 Law on Victim and Witness Protection, restitution is defined as compensation provided to victims or their families by the perpetrator or a third party (Article 1 Section 11), while compensation is defined as a substitute for losses provided by the state because the perpetrator is unable to provide full compensation for which he is responsible to the victim or his family (Article 1 Section 10)..

According to Article 7a Section 1 of the 2014 law, victims of criminal offences are entitled to restitution in the form of: compensation for loss of wealth or income; compensation for losses incurred due to suffering directly related to the criminal offense; and/or reimbursement of medical and/or psychological treatment costs. For victims of serious human rights violations and victims of terrorism, in addition to being entitled to restitution, they are also entitled to compensation that can be submitted through the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK). Based on the articles above, restitution applications can be submitted through LPSK both before or after a court decision that has obtained permanent legal force.

In the context of restitution, the provision of restitution to victims of criminal acts is contained in Articles 98 to 101 of the 2014 law, which regulate the possibility of merging compensation cases. Article 98 states that if an act that forms the basis of an indictment in a criminal case heard by a district court causes harm to another person, the presiding judge may decide to merge the compensation claim case with the criminal case. Such a request can only be made at the latest before the public prosecutor files criminal charges. In the absence of the public prosecutor, the request shall be made no later than before the judge pronounces a verdict.

The merger of compensation cases as stipulated in Indonesia’s Criminal Procedure Code is in accordance with the principle of balance, which is not only concerned with the rights of the perpetrator, but also the protection of the rights of the victim as another related party. One of the objectives of this merger is the achievement of the principle of simple, fast and low-cost justice.

Although it reflects the protection of victims, the provision for the merger of cases outlined above has weaknesses. These weaknesses include: that it depends on a single main criminal case; that compensation is only for material losses; that the submission is no later than before the prosecution; that the legal remedy depends on the main case; and that if the criminal case is not appealed, the compensation claim cannot also be appealed. With these weaknesses, the incorporation of compensation cases into criminal prosecutions that Indonesia’s Law on Victim and Witness Protection is not fully oriented towards the protection of victims—for example in cases at the district court level where a defendant is sentenced to punishment, but their victims’ compensation claim is not granted.

If the victim seeks full compensation, then they must continue to go through the civil process because the incorporation of their compensation claim in the criminal case is only limited to the amount of material losses they have suffered as a direct consequence of the criminal activity in question.

According to Fauzy Marasabessy, the provision in Article 7a that limits compensation claims to dealing with only material losses is actually a contradiction of the contents of Article 101 which reads “the provisions of the rules of civil procedure law apply to compensation claims”. Thus, there should be no need for restrictions on the type of loss—because under the provisions of Indonesian civil law, both material and immaterial damages can be the basis of compensation claims.

Restitution for Kanjuruhan Victims

Indonesia’s Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) conducted an assessment of the restitution to which victims of Kanjuruhan are entitled and submitted it to the court trying the five perpetrators of the Kanjuruhan for crimes of causing death or injury due to negligence. LPSK assessed that 42 kanjuruhan victims who applied to it for financial restitution were collectively entitled to financial damages of Rp8.85 billion (A$895,000).

LPSK sent a letter to the East Java Prosecutor’s Office about the restitution value on 22 February 2023. However, because the letter arrived late, the the restitution request was not cited in the prosecutor’s indictment.

According to information provided in an interview with LPSK with some the authors, the number of applicants for LPSK protection for the Kanjuruhan tragedy amounted to 65 out of 782 people, including 23 people protected as witnesses and 42 victims who applied for restitution. The percentage level of witnesses and victims protected by the state through LPSK is only 8% of the total estimated number of victims.

Number of Restitution Victims Requested by LPSK

No.	Status	Kanjuruhan Casualties	Victims for whom restitution is requested
1.	Death	135 people	35 people
2.	Wounded	647 people	7 people
Total korban		782 people	42 people

Submission of restitution for children of Kanjuruhan victims

No.	Child Status	Number of child victims	Victim’s child submitted for restitution
1.	Death	44 children	7 children
2.	Wounded	201 children	3 children
Total child casualties		245 children	10 children

Ineffective legal framework

Indonesia’s Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 of 2022, governing the procedures for resolving applications and providing restitution and compensation to victims of criminal acts, requires victims to actively demand restitution rights from the perpetrators of criminal acts through applications to LPSK. This procedure ultimately has a weakness: namely the absence of legal certainty for victims, which burdens victims mentally and materially.

Regulations related to the fulfillment of victims’ rights also do not distinguish between adult and child victims. In fact, as many as one third of the victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy were children, totalling 245 victims, consisting of 44 children who died, 9 who were seriously injured and 192 who received minor injuries.

In the context of criminal law regulation towards victims of crime, two basic models of regulation are recognised, namely The procedural rights model and the services model. The first model is given to the possibility of the victim to play an active role in the judicial process, so that the victim is given the right to conduct criminal prosecution such as the right to be heard and presented at the trial, the right to be consulted by prison authorities before the offender is given conditional release, and the right to make peace, including assisting the public prosecutor in their work in the justice system.

In the service model, it is necessary to emphasize the creation of standard standards for the guidance of victims, for example in the context of notification to victims and/or prosecutors in the course of the case, providing compensation, and so on. In fact, during the trial of the Kanjuruhan case from 20 January– to 16 February 2023, the involvement and interest of the families of victims and victim witnesses was minimal. The court banned direct media coverage and electronic broadcasts and transferred the trial process to the Surabaya District Court instead of holding it in Malang.

Compensation can only be pursued through prosecution or appeal files or using a civil trial mechanism, namely a hearing on a request for restitution determination. An alternative solution that can be taken quickly is to submit an application to the Surabaya District Court through a restitution determination application hearing, with a format like a civil lawsuit. However, the East Java Prosecutor’s Office considers it impossible to impose restitution for only some of the defendants.

In the relevant 2022 Supreme Court Regulation that details how compensation claims can be mounted as part of criminal cases, the weakness also lies in the absence of coercive elements for ordinary criminal offence, as in the Kanjuruhan tragedy. The Attorney General, civil or military prosecutor may confiscate assets and impose substitute imprisonment to fulfill restitution payments limited to criminal offenses of human trafficking and terrorism (Article 30 Section 11). Meanwhile, in ordinary criminal offence, the A–G or prosecutor is limited to giving instructions to the perpetrators of criminal acts and/or third parties to carry out the provision of restitution no later than 14 days from the date the order is received (Article 30 Section 9). The East Java Attorney General’s Office did not provide alternative options when the restitution burden cannot be paid by the criminal offender. In other words, in Indonesian law, the form of restitution does not accommodate state assistance in fulfilling victims’ rights or state intervention in assisting criminal offenders to fulfill restitution. In the context of the Kanjuruhan tragedy, only 42 victims applied for restitution and there were 93 other victims plus other injured victims who did not take this option.

It is undeniable that the only thing the victims of the tragedy can do after the verdict of the five Kanjuruhan defendants is announced is to apply for restitution for the losses they endured through LPSK, as an institution that has the mandate and role to provide protection and other rights to witnesses and/or victims. But the existing legal framework has not concretely accommodated the full rights of victims of the Kanjuruhan Tragedy. This has resulted in disappointment from victims as a result of legal conditions that do not have a victim’s perspective in mind.

The state’s obligation to provide compensation is predicated on the failure of law enforcement to eliminate or prevent crime. Compensation is based on fairness and social solidarity, and begins from the reality that other sources of compensation have proven inadequate to fully compensate victims. In providing benefits to society at large, the application of compensation through compensation is more suitable where the state takes responsibility and empathises with its society because it is considered to have failed to protect and anticipate a criminal act can occur. The provision of restitution or compensation puts more emphasis on the restorative justice approach given to each individual victim of crime from the perpetrator who provides protection for each victim.

The anger of the supporters of those impacted by the Kanjuruhan disaster—expressed through the slogan “Usut Tuntas” (investigate thoroughly)—has become a basis of hope for efforts to seek justice for victims. Along the way, several groups of supporters and the community have carried out struggles by demanding that law enforcement officials prosecute suspects. This includes urging the state to find the true facts about the motive and reality of the incident. However, their demands currently seem to have reached a deadlock. There is no positive will from the government (including law enforcement officials) to reveal the true facts while providing justice for victims.

The collective awareness of a legal process that does not favour their interests has been strongly embedded in the minds of victims, even though the families of victims still demand justice in the process of legal settlement in court. Three demands were made in a 10 November 2022 declaration, namely: demanding to arrest and prosecute all actors behind the Kanjuruhan tragedy and all executors in the field; making the Kanjuruhan tragedy a human rights violation; demanding compensation for all losses suffered by victims and families of victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy through compensation and restitution. Progress on all three still lies far from the values of justice for victims. Looking at the judicial process so far, solving cases from a victim’s perspective is still like looking for a needle in a haystack, difficult to achieve.

The post Justice after Kanjuruhan: the law vs justice appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.

1 October 2022 was the last day for Margaretha, a 17-year-old victim of Kanjuruhan football stadium disaster in Malang, East Java. Margaretha was lying lifeless when her family found her in the hospital that night, clutching a bag, and with her identity documents still intact.

Margaretha’s mother was psychologically traumatised after the tragedy, always blaming herself, and remembering what had happened to her daughter. If she could have forbidden her daughter not to watch the match that day, then it is possible that her daughter would still be safe.

The family of another victim, Okto, was offered psychological assistance from one of the universities in Malang. The family did not take it, because they thought that it would mean Okto’s mother would continue to remember her son’s death. Before leaving for the stadium, Okto borrowed his father’s shoes. The family found Okto lifeless, wearing a white jumper, with his father’s shoes left on. Okto’s body was found at Wava Husada Kepanjen Hospital without any identity documents. His wallet and mobile phone had disappeared.

Their suffering exemplifies the psychological effects felt by the families of the victims in the year after the tragedy, in which 135 people were killed after police fired tear gas on crowds after a pitch invasion.

The trauma of survivors and families feeling the heavy loss of family members has been compounded by intimidation by authorities.

These traumas for the victims’ families have been compounded by their experiences of intimidation by outsiders beginning shortly after the tragedy occurred. Some of the alleged threats and intimidation directed at witnesses and victims’ families are quite diverse, ranging from illegal searches and confiscation of evidence by investigators, intimidation of medical personnel, surveillance and threatening behaviour towards victims’ parents by unknown persons suspected to be police, to intimidation for expressing opinions in the Kanjuruhan trial decision.

One survivor, Devi, felt the deep loss of losing his two daughters to the Kanjuruhan tragedy. In the midst of the autopsy process, Devi’s emotional outburst was so strong witnessing the death of his daughters and this deep sorrow also prompted him to declare that “this tragedy is a massacre” on the part of the police. This psychological pressure was not only experienced by Devi, whose story was reported in Vice News, but also by the families of other victims whose stories were not covered by the media, some of whom also experienced psychological intimidation by the authorities.

One of these families is Maria’s., where field observations have shown that this family not only felt a deep loss for the departure of their family members, but they also felt non-physical intimidation from security personnel after the Kanjuruhan tragedy. In the case of Maria’s family, they expressed their feelings of loss when they learned that Maria (the third of the five children) was taken from her son by the tragedy. The family found it difficult to explain to their son about their mother’s true condition.

When Maria died, her son (aged one year) did not leave the house for almost two months. Until his hands were like scratching, changing skin like that. Then crying for his mama. Yesterday, his body was hot for one week, crying for his mama. Then I said mama he said he was looking for money, looking for work….ooh how come he forgot (crying). (Interview with Maria’s family, 16 May 2023)

Lost lives, lost livelihoods

The Kanjuruhan tragedy on 1 2022 hast left a painful imprint for its victims. A year after the tragedy, the loss of life for the families of those killed and injured by tear gas is not the only impact. The families of the victims continue to experience long-term psychological, social, and economic consequences.

Numerous kinds of government and non-governmental aid have been distributed to the victims. However, the nature of this assistance is still partial and spontaneous as a form of responsibility to the survivors. In addition, the aid distributed has not been able to answer the long-term needs of those who survived, so a sense of justice to them has not been present in handling the aftermath of this tragedy. A series of interviews conducted by Malang Corruption Watch with 20 families of those killed in the Kanjuruhan disaster, conducted over a two week period in May 2023, shows that many families’ socio-economic conditions have changed drastically. In many cases, the person on whom the family relies for income is now gone. Based on information from the victim’s family who was left behind by the victim in the tragedy explained:

So far, my husband has been the backbone of the family. With his death, now I have to struggle harder. Until now, I have not been able to find a permanent job, only as a housemaid to fulfill the family’s needs” (Interview with victim’s wife, Dimas, 16 May 2023).

One of our interviews reveals that one victim’s wife was forced to become the female head of the household to support her only daughter. The wife was forced to make important decisions in the household by herself. Their lives are increasingly isolated.

Almost all of the victims’ families have something in common, namely a high potential for social vulnerability. This condition makes it more difficult for them to face life both socially and economically.

One of the victims in Malang’s Tajinan sub-district had just started a motorcycle and carpet washing business for three months before his death at Kanjuruhan stadium. While managing the business, he was financially independent and able to break even, with enough profit for his daily needs after graduating from Vocational High School (SMK). However, after the tragedy, there was no effort to compensate the loss of income according to the income of the victims’ families. In fact, just for the procurement of a machine or work tool, Suyono (the victim’s father) had to ask a state institution. The machine was not an initiative of the state officials who were also part of the litigants in the Kanjuruhan tragedy.

In addition to the uncertainty around income compensation, the certainty of access in the form of legal fees or expenses incurred by victims as part of their participation in the trial of five individuals, including three police officers, implicated in the disaster. There is almost no ease of access victims’ families at the trial. One of the victims’ families in Malang Regency was even encouraged by some unscrupulous state officials to “not exaggerate the problem”, with the implication that there was no guarantee of transportation to attend the trial in Surabaya.

Tali Asih: inadequate assistance to victims

Victims have rights to assistance and compensation, including ensuring free medical treatment and trauma healing for victims and their families. Victims’ rights are regulated in legislation, specifically in Indonesia’s 2014 Law on Witness and Victim Protection (Undang-Undang No 31 Tahun 2014 tentang Perlindungan Saksi dan Korban), which regulates the rights of witnesses and victims to claim protection from the state; these rights are considered part of human rights. The government or the private sector should not just provide compensation, but should handle events and fulfil rights from a victim’s perspective.

Assistance is carried out in the form of giving money, goods, or services, to individuals, families, groups and/or communities to protect them from social risks. The assistance distributed is not merely a substitute for the loss of a loved one’s life, but proof of attention as well as friendship from various parties to the victim’s family.

In this case, various kinds of aid have been distributed to the victims, both monetary and non-monetary. However, the majority of the aid distributed has been in the form of monetary aid, which a diverse array of stakeholders have provided to the families of the Kanjuruhan victims. It can’t be denied that the distribution of cash assistance is the quickest way to fulfill their responsibility to help the families of the victims. However, it has yet to address the needs of the victims’ families—especially long-term needs such as education and careers—nor does it provide full justice for the victims’ families.

In general, there were two parties that have provided assistance to the families of the Kanjuruhan victims. The first is the government. At first glance, almost all levels of government participated in this mission, from the central government to local governments. At the central government level, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) are the most dominant stakeholders in providing assistance. In an interview with Malang Corruption Watch, Suyono, a father of one Kanjuruhan victim, mentioned the assistance he received from the Ministry of Social Affairs in the form of compensation of Rp10 million to each of the victim’s families, although he also stated that the assistance was also unevenly distributed to all of the victims’ families.

Meanwhile, the majority of assistance from LPSK has come in the form of psychological assistance and trauma recovery services for victims’ families. This assistance was received by almost every victim’s family. However, not all of the victims’ families accepted the assistance, either because they did not need it or because they were afraid that accessing such services would exacerbate their trauma.

At the local government level, the East Java provincial government under the leadership of Governor Khofifah Indah Parawansa, alongside the Malang City and Malang District governments have become central channels for providing assistance to the families of Kanjuruhan victims. Some data obtained as part of Malang Corruption Watch’s interviews shows that many families were given assistance by Khofifah’s provincial government, mostly in the form of cash and business capital assistance. The cash assistance provided ranged from Rp5–10 million for each victim family, while business capital assistance was provided in the form of money, machine tools, and jobs.

Second, assistance was voluntarily provided to victim families by non-governmental parties as a form of their concern for this tragedy. This has included political parties, for instance, Golkar Party, where Malang Regency Leadership Council of Golkar Party (DPC Kabupaten Malang) provided education assistance to the family of one victim, Caca, amounting to Rp10 million per month and the assistance was intended to finance her siblings who were still in school. This assistance, was paid from the internal finances of the DPC Golkar, will last for two years until Caca’s siblings have graduated from school.

Aside from assistance from political parties, private educational institutions such as kindergartens also provided education assistance for the family members of the victims who were still in school. The family of Ningsih, another victim, for example, received education assistance for her younger brother who is still in kindergarten to be extended until he graduated from kindergarten.

Table 1: Summary of the types of assistance received by the families of the victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy

No	Types of Help	Helper		Number (families of beneficiary victims)
		Government agencies	Non-Government
1.	Cash			20
2.	Groceries			20
3.	Funeral expenses			2
4.	Education			7
5.	Work aids			1
6.	Psychological rehabilitation			9
7.	Population administration relief			2
8.	Health/medicine			1
9.	Tax relief			1
10.	SIM free			1

All these forms of assistance are certainly not enough to make up for the loss of life of the victim for their families. However, due to the voluntary nature of the assistance, the families of the victims accepted it openly. The assistance they receive does not guarantee the fulfillment of long-term needs, that should be safeguarded by the state.

From our interviews, it can be concluded that the types of assistance received were not well planned. Victims’ families’ descriptions of the forms of assistance also vary from one another. There are no standardised mechanisms that can ensure that the various forms of assistance are distributed fairly and transparently to the survivors and victims’ families.

As a result, miscoordination in the field the distribution of assistance to survivors is often apparent, and a lot of assistance was assembled immediately after the tragedy, without being able to be utilised for further long-term needs. In addition to the problem of miscoordination, the provision of this assistance also experiences limitations in the aspect of reach, and makes the existing assistance feel that it does not meet recipients’ shifting needs.

Justice beyond aid

Providing material assistance to those impacted by the Kanjuruhan disaster in this way is not very effective in delivering an element of justice to them. If the process of providing assistance is not done properly, there will be various conflicts caused by unfair decision-making. The fulfillment of victims’ needs will be achieved if there is a coherence in the work of a coordinated distribution system that can consider the characteristics of the individual needs of victims.

Indonesia’s Law No. 11/2009 on Social Welfare (Article 1, section 9) states that social protection is all efforts directed at preventing and dealing with risks from social shocks and vulnerabilities. The shocks and vulnerabilities in question are conditions that occur abruptly, as a result of social, economic, or political crises, disasters, and natural phenomena. Thus, the Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible for formulating policies and programs for the implementation of social welfare and the provision of social assistance.

However, due to the limited resources owned by the Ministry of Social Affairs in providing direct assistance, crowdfunding method has become an alternative to recover Kanjuruhan victims by raising funds from the community.

If we look at the practice of fundraising for victims of the Kanjuruhan tragedy, so far the parties who have channeled aid have directly met the victims or through organisers at the Aremania football team’s supporter club. The victims are in a vulnerable position not only in terms of facing the criminal justice system, but also economically, socially and politically. In addition, many of them currently lack long-term social and economic security because the majority of aid was distributed shortly after the Kanjuruhan tragedy took place.

Policy-wise, the aid distribution system requires coordination from multiple actors who are competent in distributing aid. It is necessary to analsze the burden borne by victims based on the criteria of economic capacity, the number of family members, and the scale of the economic impact of the disaster on them. Fulfillment of victims’ welfare rights is not only about monetary assistance, but there needs to be a clear calculation in measuring losses to victims. Thus, it should consider more vital aspects such as age, income, actual conditions, and the years left before reaching the national life expectancy. If we take the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ compensation system as an example, the calculation of compensation can even reach a very specific amount with a formula that includes the age of the victim, the national life expectancy at the time of death, and the income earned before death.

This compensation, in turn, needs to be jointly fought for by the entire community to ensure the establishment of justice for Kanjuruhan victims from a legal perspective. Thus, the struggle agenda to demand usut tuntas—thorough investigation—as the slogan of the Kanjuruhan tragedy demands collective awareness. This demand should not come from a particular group, but as a manifestation of a struggle that is in line with the will of the victims.

This means that all processes of defending victims must be based on the victims’ perspective. The victims’ perspective means that all forms of voices issued to the public regarding the Kanjuruhan issue comes from the victims. Understanding the true demands of the victims is what is so important to be pursued immediately. After the tragedy, various impacts have been experienced by the victims, but as our interviews have highlighted, they did receive various kinds of assistance from both the government and the community.

However, can anyone measure the price of losing a life? Of course, learning to listen to the voices of the victims is very important for the government to do immediately.

The post Justice after Kanjuruhan: lost Lives, lost livelihoods appeared first on New Mandala.

This post was originally published on New Mandala.