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Will a Prabowo presidency spell the end of Indonesian democracy? (Part 1)
Ardent supporters of Reformasi seem inclined to look the other way when presented with actual facts related to the 2024 general election, and would do well to disallow their fear of democratic backsliding and the military's political resurgence to continue to fuel the rumor mill, lest they create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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This is the first of a two-part article.
The General Elections Commission (KPU) has declared Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka the winning pair of the Feb. 14 presidential election, and they will govern Indonesia for the next five years starting in October.
The 2024 presidential and legislative elections were not ordinary. They have triggered a torrent of speculation in both Indonesia and international media, rumors and not a little disbelief.
As we all know, rumors are wonderful things. They have the power of hurricanes and the destructive energy of forest fires.
Each whisper, each innuendo, each shake of the head or expression of disapproval, when added together, begins to generate a momentum of distrust, of apprehension, of an inability to comprehend how close to 58 percent of over 204 million Indonesian voters could have chosen a former Army general, a man suspected of but never indicted for authorizing the shooting of Timorese separatist fighters and the kidnapping of young college activists, to be their next president.
In some quarters, however, antipathy to Prabowo has given rise to a deep-seated fear that his election may well spell the end of Indonesian democracy.
Of course, the idea of an impending end to democracy in Indonesia is not merely attributed to Prabowo's lack of anger management skills or even his supposedly quixotic personality. It is mixed together in an unsavory cocktail with disappointment over the progress of Reformasi (reform movement).
