The current alternating power blackout across the country shows how badly Indonesia is managed under President Prabowo Subianto’s government.
A country does not become a middle-income industrial power by building grand projects, announcing ambitious targets, or producing endless political slogans. It becomes one by ensuring the most basic infrastructure of modern civilization works: electricity, water, transportation, and public services.
Yet Indonesia today is facing a humiliating reality: factories are forced to stop, production lines are interrupted, machines risk damage, and businesses suffer losses because the country cannot guarantee a stable supply of electricity.
Reports of rolling blackouts across several regions revealed that industrial users were among the hardest hit, with disruptions affecting manufacturing processes, raw materials, and operational costs. This is not merely a technical failure. It is a failure of governance.
But the damage of a blackout is not only counted in factory losses or business disruptions. It is also counted in millions of small decisions made inside ordinary households, decisions about what families can no longer afford.
A citizen recently described via his social media account what she called a “downgrade of quality of life” under the current economic situation. A family that once used better healthcare coverage had to move to a lower class. Electricity spending that was once managed comfortably became something rationed, adding only a small amount when the meter warning appeared. Home internet was replaced by daily phone data packages. Liquid soap became bar soap. Large shampoo bottles became sachets. Weekly food preparation budgets disappeared, replaced by whatever small amount could be carried to the market each day.
And the most painful sacrifice was education: a parent was forced to move her child from a private Islamic school to a public school, not because the public school was inferior, but because the family had exhausted every other possible expense to cut.
The most heartbreaking part of this story is not the individual sacrifice itself. It is the accumulation of millions of similar sacrifices across the country.
A nation does not collapse only through dramatic crises. Sometimes it declines slowly, through families quietly lowering their expectations, reducing their consumption, postponing dreams, and accepting that the life they once planned is no longer affordable.
Electricity is the foundation upon which every modern economy stands. A power outage in a village may be an inconvenience. A power outage affecting industrial centers is a warning sign. It tells investors, workers, and citizens that something fundamental in state capacity is weakening.
The government may argue that the blackout was caused by technical problems, unexpected failures, or temporary disruptions. But a serious state cannot be managed by explanations after a crisis happens. The question is not whether a failure can occur as every system can fail. The question is whether the system has enough resilience, redundancy, and preparation to prevent a failure from becoming a national disruption.
This is the difference between a functioning state and a fragile one.
For years, Indonesians have been told that the country is entering a new era of development: a stronger economy, industrial transformation, downstream industries, and global competitiveness. But industrialization requires more than speeches about becoming a manufacturing hub. It requires reliable energy infrastructure and a government capable of delivering basic services.
A factory cannot operate based on political promises. A production line does not care about government narratives. A machine does not understand slogans. It requires electricity.
When electricity becomes unreliable, the consequences spread beyond temporary darkness. Companies must spend more on backup generators. Production schedules collapse. Supply chains are disrupted. Small businesses lose income. Investors reconsider expansion plans. The cost is eventually transferred to ordinary citizens through higher prices and fewer opportunities.
The irony is painful: while the government speaks about attracting investment and creating jobs, ordinary people are forced into a survival strategy of continuous downgrade.
This is why the blackout is more than a power issue.
It is a symbol of a larger problem: the gap between the image of development and the reality experienced by citizens.
A modern state is not measured by how many mega-projects it announces or how impressive its infrastructure looks from a distance. It is measured by whether ordinary people can live with dignity, whether businesses can operate reliably, and whether families believe their children will have a better future.
A country that cannot keep the lights on in its industrial centers risks becoming exactly what its name suggests: A blackout nation.
The darkness is not only in the streets.
It is in the failure of leadership to understand that competence is the first requirement of power.
