And just like that, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto—barring health issues—has effectively secured his reelection in 2029.
In a masterclass of realpolitik, Prabowo obliterated what remains of the opposition in a single day, striking with the precision of a military tactician-turned-political maestro. In a matter of hours, he killed not one, not two, but three birds with a single stone, reshaping the political battlefield in his favor.
The first stroke came with the sudden reversal of the controversial freezing of dormant bank accounts by the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK). After days of public outrage, ranging from housewives to economists, students to celebrities, Prabowo summoned PPATK Chief Ivan Yustiavandana, likely reprimanded him behind closed doors, and ordered the accounts to be reopened.
The move was not merely administrative. It was performative politics at its sharpest. In humiliating his own official and swiftly “siding with the people,” Prabowo turned a bureaucratic blunder into a populist victory. He rebranded state failure as personal triumph: absorbing criticism directed at the state and reflecting back approval directed at himself.
It is a textbook example of affective governance, a rule not through institutions, but through gestures, emotions, and optics. Prabowo transformed a policy crisis into a theatre of empathy, placing himself above the state and outside its apparatus, as a benevolent patriarch correcting the wayward.
This pattern is not new. In previous episodes, such as the 3 kg LPG gas ban, illegal mining in Raja Ampat, and the territorial dispute in Aceh claimed by Bobby Nasution, his ally and son-in-law of former President Jokowi, Prabowo has used missteps of his own administration to his advantage. Rather than being blamed, he emerges as a problem-solver, a redeemer figure correcting wrongs. In political theory, this represents the shift from technocratic legitimacy to charismatic authority, a move Max Weber warned could erode institutional accountability and reduce politics to personality.
Then came the killing blow to the opposition. Out of nowhere, Prabowo issued a presidential pardon for Hasto Kristiyanto, Secretary General of PDI-P, Indonesia’s largest party. Just hours later, he overturned the court verdict against Thomas Lembong, a close aide of Anies Baswedan, Prabowo’s staunchest rival in the 2024 presidential race.
These acts sent shockwaves through the political landscape. With one stroke, Prabowo disarmed two of the most prominent political camps that could challenge him in 2029: Megawati’s PDI-P and Anies Baswedan’s reformist coalition.
Megawati, long a nemesis of Prabowo, responded with remarkable speed: instructing her followers to rally behind the President by any means necessary. Her about-face signals the formal end of party opposition in Indonesia. PDI-P has moved from resistance to cooptation—an absorption into the ever-expanding sphere of presidential power.
Meanwhile, the pardoning of Tom Lembong dealt a psychological blow to Anies’s base. In embracing Tom Lembong, Prabowo isolated Anies from his supporters, many of whom admired Tom Lembong’s integrity and reformist stance. The maneuver demoralized the opposition, scattering what was left of a loosely organized post-election resistance. Of course, there’s a possibility that Tom Lembong may reject the rehabilitation. But doing so would place him in a difficult position, as the public sees no clear reason for such a refusal, raising questions about his motives and branding him as merely seeking popularity.
This is a classic Machiavellian move: clemency not as mercy, but as domination.
By pardoning opponents, Prabowo projects magnanimity while neutralizing threats. He reshapes former adversaries into symbols of his benevolence and supremacy, leaving them politically indebted and publicly tamed.
What we are witnessing is not mere consolidation of power. It is the remaking of the Indonesian political system into what political theorists call competitive authoritarianism. Elections remain, parties exist, and media still operates, but the rules of the game are skewed, and opposition is structurally undermined through absorption, intimidation, or spectacle.
Prabowo’s genius lies in his ability to simulate pluralism while centralizing control, a distinctly post-Reformasi adaptation of Suharto-era tactics. Unlike the old New Order, this new model doesn’t eliminate parties; it swallows them. It doesn’t ban dissent; it exhausts it. It doesn’t censor; it co-opts.
This also aligns with what Antonio Gramsci termed passive revolution: a transformation driven from above that incorporates certain oppositional elements not to reform the system, but to stabilize it under new control. By offering clemency to select opposition figures, Prabowo absorbs their legitimacy, defangs their criticisms, and prevents the formation of a coherent counter-hegemonic bloc.
Indonesia now enters a new phase, what we might call post-opposition democracy. The parliamentary arena has been reduced to ceremonial gestures, and civil society is increasingly fragmented and silenced. The legal system bends when summoned, and the media, while still vocal in corners, is drowned by a chorus of orchestrated praise.
In Tom Lembong’s case, for instance, Prabowo should have initiated a consultation with the Supreme Court to investigate the judges or requested a review by the Judicial Commission, allowing the appeals process to proceed independently. Instead, Prabowo opted for a public rehabilitation in order to maximize sympathy and political gains, but also setting a dangerous precedent: that whenever it serves his political interests, he can wield his power to bend the judicial system at will.
If this is Prabowo’s idea of national unity, then unity it is, on his terms.
What makes this moment alarming is not just the tactics themselves, but how seamlessly they are accepted. It is how quickly the public cheers gestures of power disguised as justice.
In the end, Prabowo does not just rule. He defines the battlefield, the rules, the roles, and even the scripts of his opponents. His mastery lies not only in power, but in performance, using crisis as opportunity, opposition as adornment, and clemency as conquest.
Unless a new, coherent, and independent political force emerges from outside this ecosystem, Indonesian politics, as we knew it since 1998, has effectively ended. This raises crucial questions: can the Indonesia Gelap movement continue? Or, is the current embrace of the “One Piece” flag ahead of Indonesia’s 80th Independence commemoration, alongside the Merah Putih, a truly meaningful spark of long-term resistance? We still have to see.
But for now, what we fear is that what comes next is a presidential theater of strength, mercy, and inevitability.
And just like that, Prabowo Subianto is not just the president, he is the system.
Omong-Omong Media’s editorial is also published in The Jakarta Post every Monday.
