TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Analysis: Prabowo forms volunteer group to consolidate supporters
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto (center) dances onstage at a gathering with supporters on Feb. 14, 2024, after the polls closed.
(AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
T
he National Solidarity Movement (GSN) was formed earlier this month apparently to serve as a political safety net for President Prabowo Subianto. The organization, which is neither a social movement nor a political group, will consolidate Prabowo’s volunteers and supporters, from the grassroots to politicians, including members of the Red and White Cabinet.
The GSN, first and foremost, gives Prabowo’s large network of campaigners a place in his administration. In fact, Investment and Downstream Minister Rosan Roeslani, who served as Prabowo’s campaign manager, has been named the head of the organization.
Forming this organization is a move similar to what Prabowo’s predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo did with one of his largest supporter groups, Projo, after he won the 2014 presidential election. Projo continued to support Jokowi during his reelection bid in 2019 and its leader, Budi Arie Setiadi, was thus rewarded by being named communications and information minister in July 2023.
Having thrown its weight behind Prabowo and Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka during February’s election, Projo guaranteed itself a spot in the GSN. Not only has Prabowo retained Budi Arie in the new cabinet as cooperatives minister, but he has also named the Projo leader part of the GSN steering committee.
Several other cabinet members are also part of the organization’s steering committee, which is led by Prabowo alongside Gibran, including Coordinating Political and Security Affairs Minister Budi Gunawan and Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Minister Nusron Wahid.
According to Rosan, the organization was founded as a means to mobilize people from all walks of life for the sake of national development. Programs that the GSN will run and support include debt relief for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the President’s flagship free meals program. Moreover, Rosan emphasized that despite the involvement of several ministers, the GSN is not linked to or funded by the government in any way.
Thus the question remains as to why Prabowo would need the GSN in the first place. Unlike Jokowi, who had to mobilize Projo because he did not have a political party to call his own, Prabowo is the chairman of one of Indonesia’s biggest political parties, Gerindra, which currently has the third-largest number of seats in the House of Representatives.
