One chapter ends, another begins: Prabowo and Joko inspecting honour guards during the presidential handover ceremony at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta. — AP
PRABOWO Subianto has been inaugurated as the eighth president of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, completing his journey from an ex-general accused of rights abuses during the dark days of Indonesia’s military dictatorship to the presidential palace.
The former defence minister, who turned 73 on Thursday, was cheered through the streets by thousands of waving supporters after taking his oath on the Quran before lawmakers and foreign dignitaries yesterday.
Banners and billboards to welcome the new president filled the streets of the capital, Jakarta, where tens of thousands gathered for festivities including speeches and musical performances along the city’s major throughfare.
Wearing a blue Betawi traditional cloth and a dark baseball cap, Prabowo stood up in the sunroof of a white van and waved, occasionally shaking people’s hands, as his motorcade struggled to pass through the thousands of supporters calling his name and chanting “Good luck Prabowo-Gibran”, filling the road leading from the parliament building to the presidential palace.
“I see a firm and patriotic figure in him,” said Atalaric Eka Prayoga, a 25-year-old Jakarta resident. “That’s a figure we need to lead Indonesia.”
“I have high hopes that he can build Indonesia to be more advanced and improve the current gloomy economic situation,” said another resident, Silky Putri.
Prabowo was a longtime rival of the immensely popular President Joko Widodo, who ran against him for the presidency twice and refused to accept his defeat on both occasions, in 2014 and 2019.
But Joko appointed Prabowo as defence chief after his re-election, paving the way for an alliance despite their rival political parties.
During the campaign, Prabowo ran as the popular outgoing president’s heir, vowing to continue signature policies like the construction of a multibillion-dollar new capital city and limits on exporting raw materials intended to boost domestic industry.
Backed by Joko, Prabowo swept to a landslide victory in February’s direct presidential election on promises of policy continuity.
Prabowo was sworn in with his new vice-president, 37-year-old Surakarta ex-mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
He chose Gibran, who is Joko’s son, as his running mate, with Joko favouring Prabowo over the candidate of his own former party. The former rivals became tacit allies, even though Indonesian presidents don’t typically endorse candidates.
But how he will govern the biggest economy in South-East Asia – where nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 282 million people are Muslims – remains uncertain after a campaign in which he made few concrete promises besides continuity with the popular ex-president.
Prabowo, who comes from one of the country’s wealthiest families, is a sharp contrast to Joko, the first Indonesian president to emerge from outside the political and military elite who came from a humble background and as president often mingled with working-class crowds.
Prabowo was a special forces commander until he was expelled by the army in 1998 over accusations that he played a role in the kidnappings and torture of activists and other abuses.
He never faced trial and went into self-imposed exile in Jordan in 1998, although several of his underlings were tried and convicted.
Prabowo, who has never held elective office, will lead a massive, diverse archipelago nation whose economy has boomed amid strong global demand for its natural resources.
But he will have to contend with global economic distress and regional tensions in Asia, where territorial conflicts and the United States-China rivalry loom large.
Leaders and senior officials from more than 30 countries flew in to attend yesterday’s ceremony.
Prabowo has vowed to continue Joko’s modernisation efforts, which have boosted Indonesia’s economic growth by building infrastructure and leveraging the country’s abundant resources.
A signature policy required nickel, a major Indonesian export and a key component of electric car batteries, to be processed in local factories rather than exported raw.
He has also promised to push through Joko’s most ambitious and controversial project: the construction of a new capital on Borneo, about 2,000km away from congested Jakarta.
A rousing speaker, Prabowo railed against widespread corruption in his inauguration speech.
“Too many of our brothers and sisters are below the poverty line, too many of our children go to school without breakfast and do not have clothes for school,” Prabowo said.
Before February’s presidential election, he also promised to provide free school lunches and milk to 78.5 million students at over 400,000 schools across the country, aiming to reduce malnutrition and stunted growth among children.
“We must dare to see all of this and we must dare to solve all of these problems,” he said yesterday.
He also pledged to continue a non-aligned foreign policy and to be a good neighbour.
“We will stand against all colonialism and we will defend the interests of oppressed people worldwide,” Prabowo said. — AP
