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Violence is not a means to gain power: Prabowo
Speaking in a gathering organized by graduates of United States universities who are followers of State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir, Prabowo said that he called for a cessation of violence during the street rallies staged in 2019 to protest the outcome of the presidential election that year.
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Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto (left), accompanied by his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, delivers a speech about their campaign platform on anticorruption during the Strengthening Anticorruption for State Apparatus (Paku Integritas) event held by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in Jakarta on Jan. 17, 2024. (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
Gerindra Party presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto told a public event on Monday night that violence would tear the country apart and that no one should resort to violent means to attain political power.
Speaking in a gathering organized by graduates of United States universities who are followers of State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir, Prabowo said that he called for a cessation of violence during the street rallies staged in 2019 to protest the outcome of the presidential election that year.
"Lots of people were angry, they took to Jl. Thamrin. I came down to the site and I saw a lot of victims of the violence, some of them ready to die for me […] I told them to stop, I didn't want them to die for me," Prabowo said, as quoted by Antara.
Prabowo said that instead of resorting to violent means he opted for a political reconciliation with his then political rival, incumbent President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who later appointed him as Defense Minister.
"At that time I thought to myself rather than become president through the use of violence, I'd rather not be president," Prabowo said.
Prabowo is currently running for the third time for the presidency and this time with the backing of President Jokowi, whose son Gibran Rakabuming Raka is his running mate.
Over the weekend, two Jakarta-based pollsters said that Prabowo had widened his lead over his opponents in the latest surveys.
Based on a survey conducted between Jan 10 and 16, 48.6 percent of voters polled supported Prabowo and his vice presidential candidate Gibran, polling company Indikator Politik Indonesia said.
Pollster Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI), meanwhile, said that based on a telephone survey conducted on Jan 10-11, Prabowo had 47 percent support, up from 45.6 percent in the previous poll.
