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Indonesia and world should welcome new ‘foreign-policy president’
Prabowo may be the right choice for president for Indonesia compared with the other two candidates he beat in February, given the increasing challenges from the rapidly changing geopolitical landscape.
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Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto (left) meets Jordan's King Abdullah in Amman on June 10, 2024. (Antara/Defense Ministry)
W
hen Prabowo Subianto takes over as Indonesia’s eighth president in October, we can look forward to a leader who is going to be much more active and engaged in foreign policy, one who will find the time and take the trouble to attend major international summits and conferences, and one who will travel the world over not only representing the country but also in pursuit of national interests through international engagements.
The man he replaces, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, president since 2014, has been more focused on the domestic agenda and has shunned many international conferences. He never once attended the United Nations General Assembly, though he once addressed it online, and never traveled to Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum, a prestigious annual event that gives world leaders the chance to present their economic vision and policies. Jokowi failed to seize these opportunities to project himself as leader of an aspiring middle power.
Prabowo has been traveling around the world since after the Feb. 14 presidential election, starting even before his victory was confirmed by the General Elections Commission in May. Although he traveled in his capacity as Jokowi’s defense minister, he has been presented and welcomed in these foreign capitals as Indonesia’s president-elect. The host leaders were also able to get a sense of what Prabowo’s foreign policy would look like.
The host nations, and definitely their media, treated him as the incoming leader of the world’s fourth-largest nation whose international profile has been rising in the last 20 years, even during Jokowi’s reign.
Indonesia’s other international accolades as a middle power include the world’s third-largest democracy, the largest democracy among Muslim-majority countries, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, and a member of the Group of 20 (G20) of the world’s wealthiest nations, ranking 16th largest, but by most independent predictions, it is well on the way to becoming one of the top five by the middle of the century.
Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) praised Prabowo for his active participation in international events and for paying attention to international relations even before the inauguration, describing his speech at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore this month as “strong and beautiful” for addressing international conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.
"Pak Prabowo, 'you are on the right track' and you have become a ‘foreign policy president’. Good luck and carry on,” SBY posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account. SBY was also considered a foreign policy president during his tenure in 2004-2014 preceding Jokowi.
