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What civil society must do now to defend Indonesia’s future
Alarming signals indicate a disaster for our democracy is unfolding fast. Civil society must take action lest the worst premonitions become reality.
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Activists hold umbrellas and posters that read “No country without its people. Listen to our voice!“ during the 856th Kamisan rally in front of the State Palace in Jakarta on March 20. (Antara/Sulthony Hasanuddin )
A
month before Prabowo Subianto was sworn in as president, hundreds of representatives from civil society organizations gathered at the fifth Indonesia Civil Society Forum (ICSF) in Jakarta.
During the two-day event, activists carried out scenario planning exercises, imagining future possibilities for Indonesia in 2034, including a dystopian one in which Indonesia splintered into monarchs as the government collapsed under ecological, financial and political crises.
Six months into Prabowo’s term, alarming signals indicate a disaster for our democracy is unfolding fast. Civil society must take action lest the worst premonitions become reality.
The first alarm sounded on Prabowo’s first day in office when he expanded the presidential cabinet from 34 ministers to 48 ministers, 56 deputy ministers and five agency heads. A bloated cabinet with political appointments will increase red tape, slow decision-making and programmatic execution.
Cuts to overall government spending followed. The funds were reallocated to finance a massive free-lunch program with questionable execution and the opaque and risky sovereign wealth fund Danantara. The market responded, with the stock market crashing by more than 5 percent and the rupiah falling to its weakest level against the dollar since the 1998 Asian financial crisis. These occurrences were cause for the second, third and fourth alarms, pointing to pressure on the country’s economy.
The fifth alarm was caused by Prabowo’s target of opening up 20 million hectares of land for food security. To illustrate the scale of destruction of natural ecosystems and local communities, that’s almost 1.5 times the size of Java or more than 34 times that of Bali. This would backtrack Indonesia far from its 2030 forest and land-use net-zero target.
The sixth alarm, evoking chilling memories of past authoritarianism, signaling creeping militarism, was triggered by the swift revision of the country’s military law.
