If he wins the presidency next year, Ganjar Pranowo will likely follow the inward-looking preference of incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, although from time to time, he will also try to appease the Islamists’ aspirations.

Meanwhile, Prabowo Subianto might, as president, present himself as the reincarnation of founding president Sukarno or end up impersonating Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The third leading presidential aspirant, former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan has remained silent about his foreign policy platform, but knowing his Islamist credentials, he will be more hostile to China and anti-United States but will be unable – or lack the guts – to take much action to that effect.

My preliminary conclusion about Ganjar came after learning how the angry public blamed his anti-Israeli stance for Indonesia’s loss of the right to host the FIFA U-20 World Cup, which is now underway in Argentina.

As for Prabowo, his “out of the box” but “strange” proposal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might be caused by his admiration of Erdogan, Putin and Sukarno. The three presidents have paid a high price for their foreign policy choices in the form of the chaotic domestic economy.

Both Ganjar and Prabowo have actually dropped a hint of the direction of their foreign policy if they win the Feb. 14, 2024, race.

My guess is that Ganjar will emulate Jokowi, who only started to pay serious attention to foreign affairs after Indonesia assumed the presidency of the Group of 20 last year and took over the rotary chair of ASEAN for this year. On certain occasions, however, Ganjar will play a dangerous foreign policy game just to please the Islamists, as he did with his refusal to accept the Israeli team’s participation in the youth soccer tournament.

As a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Ganjar will uphold the teaching of Indonesia’s first president Sukarno that Indonesia is the mouthpiece of emerging forces and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Such an anti-establishment perspective will be fundamental to Indonesian foreign policy under Ganjar.

The next question is who Ganjar’s foreign minister will be. I guess he will appoint one from within the Foreign Ministry. In the case of Jokowi, he named senior diplomat Retno LP Marsudi his foreign minister in part because she was the first choice of PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri for the job.

Like Jokowi, Ganjar will also let Megawati find a foreign minister for him.

Sukarno’s anticolonial views were among Ganjar’s considerations in rejecting the Israeli youth soccer team.

“As a member of the [PDI-P], I uphold Bung Karno’s mandate to continue supporting Palestine’s independence,” Ganjar said on March 23.

But after the PDI-P realized the anti-Israeli sentiment had backfired, its secretary general Hasto Kristiyanto said, without any apparent shame, “We do regret and are sad that eventually FIFA withdrew our right to host the U-20 World Cup. […] Our position from the very beginning is that we never rejected the U-20 World Cup taking place in Indonesia. And the sociopolitical vulnerability is caused by the presence of the Israeli national team.”

Based on his presentation at the prestigious Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week, if you ask me what kind of leader Prabowo will be, I believe he will follow in the footsteps of President Erdogan and President Putin. Prabowo will emerge as a strong president of Indonesia, but probably, like Erdogan, he will elevate Indonesia into prominence in the Indo-Pacific region, where great powers are now competing. But I am afraid Indonesia’s economy will be chaotic because his foreign policy will go against the West.

This newspaper recently wrote:

During his presentation in Singapore, the defense minister outlined his proposal as follows: Secure a cease-fire, have both sides withdraw 15 kilometers from their forward positions to establish a demilitarized buffer zone, have United Nations peacekeeping forces monitor the truce and have the UN lead a referendum on which country the disputed territories should belong to.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov rejected the idea. "It sounds like a Russian plan, not an Indonesian plan," he said on a separate panel at the conference, as quoted by AFP. "We don't need this mediator coming to us [with] this strange plan". 

Prabowo’s initiative to end the war in Ukraine sparked international criticism simply because it was not consistent with Indonesia’s official standpoint. But at home, many are supportive of the retired Army general because they are fanatical fans of President Putin.

Understandably, Foreign Ministry officials feel worried about Prabowo’s plan, but they have refrained from speaking publicly, knowing Prabowo’s character and power.

President Jokowi has said he will summon Prabowo to ask him to clarify his remarks, but it will not happen anytime soon. On Thursday, Jokowi brought Prabowo to Kuala Lumpur, where the President introduced his defense minister to the Malaysian prime minister as “my good friend”.

If Prabowo really wins the election, the Foreign Ministry will have to compromise with Prabowo’s advisors, who are mostly retired military generals and nationalist-leaning politicians and scholars. During the Jokowi administration, the ministry has been more or less entrusted with the daily management of Indonesia’s foreign policy.

Who will Prabowo’s foreign minister be? I guess former deputy foreign minister Dino Patti Djalal and University of Indonesia professor of international law Hikmahanto Juwana will be Prabowo’s favorite choices. Dino served as the foreign affairs advisor of then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for 10 years until 2014.

I cannot say anything about United States-educated Anies, as he has never said anything about foreign affairs.

 ***

 The writer is a senior editor at The Jakarta Post.

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