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.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsPrabowo doesn’t need to be another Soeharto
The irony of declaring Soeharto a national hero is that Prabowo doesn't actually need the strongman's ghost to cement his legitimacy: He already has it in spades, and all he need do to carve out his legacy is to break with the past and forge ahead.
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!
President Prabowo Subianto attends the 28th ASEAN Plus Three (APT) Summit on Oct. 27, 2025, during the 47th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Kuala Lumpur. (AFP/Pool/Vincent Thian)
F
ormer president Soeharto being declared a national hero seems unreal. His actions were so devastating to the nation that calling out his name in a positive tone is simply an insult. Mentioning his name in the same breath as those of Indonesia’s other heroes is an insult to both them and the word “hero”.
Soeharto’s biggest criminal acts were not even the mass killings or normalizing collusion, corruption and nepotism, or KKN. His greatest crime was dehumanizing the Indonesian people, just as the colonial powers in this part of the world did before him. He halted the intellectual and moral growth of Indonesia by destroying its creative mind and critical thinking for over three decades. It was as if he had taken the very life out of the nation.
The democracy that now produces a society unable to compete and citizens who elect leaders like Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Prabowo Subianto is a direct result of that destruction.
Worse still, it was Soeharto who laid the foundation for the oligarchy that has now captured the state. The elites who flourished under his regime continue to dominate the economy, politics and culture, dictating every aspect of the people’s lives.
What Indonesia has today is not a democracy that liberates its people, but one that is managed and manipulated by the very forces Soeharto nurtured.
Elevating Soeharto as a national hero under the current administration is more than symbolic. It reflects a dangerous nostalgia, a longing for the illusion of “the good old days” under his authoritarian rule.
Many Indonesians, exhausted by years of a chaotic democracy and disillusioned by unfulfilled promises from their leaders, suffer from what can only be described as democracy fatigue: They are tired of voting in endless elections only to see the same oligarchic elites rotate in power. To them, the perceived stability under Soeharto appears comforting, even if that stability was built on fear, repression and silence.
