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Prabowo burned over land
Picture imperfect: An official of the Tasikmalaya General Elections Commission in West Java points at a damaged presidential election ballot on Tuesday
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icture imperfect: An official of the Tasikmalaya General Elections Commission in West Java points at a damaged presidential election ballot on Tuesday. The municipal commission has prepared a total of 494,077 ballots, 2,929 of which are damaged.(Antara/Adeng Bustomi)
The revelation that presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto owns a massive amount of land has broken a long silence about an elite group that has acquired large property concessions throughout the country in the past decade.
The announcement by incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo during the second presidential debate on Sunday that Prabowo is in possession of 220,000 hectares in East Kalimantan and 120,000 ha in Aceh came as a major blow to the former army general.
The disclosure, which has disrupted Prabowo’s campaign strategy, which sought to portray the candidate as the savior of the poor, has led to verbal attacks and counterattacks between supporters of the two candidates that ended with Prabowo’s supporters reporting the incumbent to the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) for violating the 2017 Election Law by insulting their candidate.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla jumped into the fray on Tuesday, admitting that he had been the one who had granted Prabowo the concession in East Kalimantan in 2004, saying that land ownership “does not violate any law”.
Kalla said Prabowo came to him shortly after he was sworn in as vice president in Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration and the former general expressed interest in purchasing the land, which at the time was a state asset under the supervision of Bank Mandiri.
Kalla said he had told Prabowo to make a cash payment and the former general agreed to purchase the land for US$150 million in cash, although Kalla said he did not know where Prabowo’s money came from.
Kalla then contacted Agus Martowardojo, then president director of Bank Mandiri, to ensure that the land would be owned by an Indonesian national to use for a business instead of by a foreign business entity.
“It was better that [Prabowo purchased the land rather] than give it to foreign corporations at the time. I was the one who made the decision,” Kalla said, adding that Prabowo was granted the land because he had been planning to export pulp.
The Vice President, who is also the head of the advisory board of Jokowi’s campaign team, said there were more corporations that controlled extensive landholdings like Prabowo’s. He cited Sinar Mas Group’s holdings in Riau and Palembang as an example.
During Sunday’s debate, Jokowi and Prabowo traded barbs over agrarian reform, including over the incumbent’s land distribution policy and his issuance of land certificates across the country.
Prabowo criticized Jokowi’s policy, saying the distribution could leave future generations with nothing. However, the incumbent replied by saying his administration did not distribute land to big companies.
Jokowi then added that Prabowo owned “extensive landholdings” in East Kalimantan and Central Aceh regency. Later in the debate, Prabowo admitted he had cultivation rights over the land.
The news drew an awkward response from Prabowo on stage. When the debate, which was being televised live, went to a commercial break, both campaign teams cornered members of the General Elections Commission and became involved in heated arguments about the surprise attack by the incumbent and how Prabowo was not given adequate time to respond.
Prabowo got his chance to offer a clarification at the end of the show.
“I admit that I am in possession of the plots of land, but they are all under cultivation rights [granted] from the state. They [the plots of land] belong to the state and it can take them any time,” he said.
However, Prabowo said it would be better for him to manage the land than to give it up to foreign investors.
Kalla confirmed that at the time of Prabowo’s purchase there had been investors from Singapore and Malaysia who had also been interested in the land.
Agrarian Reform Consortium National Council chairman Iwan Nurdin confirmed that Prabowo had not violated any law in obtaining the cultivation rights over the land. However, he said the point of the debate over agrarian reform was not the legality of the rights.
“The essence of the debate was on the disparity in land ownership in Indonesia and how to find a solution to systematically address the issue,” Iwan told The Jakarta Post.
“Prabowo often said there are only a few people in Indonesia’s population who control the resources in the country, but he is among those few people,” Iwan said.
While mostly known as the Gerindra Party patron, Prabowo and his younger brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo control the Nusantara Group business empire, which has 27 companies engaging in energy, plantation, mining and forestry businesses.
According to information posted on prabowosubianto.info, a site managed by Gerindra during the 2014 presidential election, Prabowo owned forestry and plantation company PT Tanjung Redeb Hutani, which controlled 180,330 ha of land in East Kalimantan with cultivation rights valid until 2035.
In Central Aceh, the site revealed, Prabowo owned forestry company PT Tusam Hutani Lestari, with cultivation rights over 97,300 ha of land that were valid until 2042. The company grows pine trees for paper pulp production.
