The military coup in Myanmar on Feb. 1, 2021 thus had a direct impact on Indonesia's hard-earned democratic reputation and commitment.

Indonesia frowned upon the incident during which Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing displaced Aung San Suu Kyi before the state counsellor, together with the thousands of elected officials from the National League for Democracy (NLD), could gain any traction, as the coup put ASEAN centrality into a pickle.

The regional grouping has now been disemboweled by the value of centrality that Jakarta favors and was previously agreed by all member states. How?

First and foremost, despite being the biggest democracy in Southeast Asia, especially since the end of Soeharto’s autocratic rule in 1998, Indonesia has rarely let out the fact that it has had eight successive peaceful elections and transitions of power over the last 22 years.

What is more remarkable, as The Atlantic has noted, that Indonesian elections are held in a single day when it currently has 275 million people with a median age of 29.7, according to Worldometer.

If any contenders are unhappy about the outcome, as former Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto was in April 2019 over Joko Widodo being declared the rightful winner by the election commission, Indonesia has electoral dispute mechanisms in place. In the case of the mass dissent mounted by Prabowo loyalists, then-National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian tactically quelled the movement by first severing their internet connection, thus depriving them of any chance to form a mob of any size, as The New York Times reported.

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