What Indonesia’s election means for development

Indonesia has all but gotten a new leader with a familiar face last week, Prabowo Subianto. The former army general and business figure appears to be successful on his third try for the presidency, and is set to take over from Joko Widodo, who has governed since 2014. Subianto finished second to Widodo, who could not run again having hit the two-term limit, in the previous two elections. The question now is where Subianto, to be inaugurated in October, will lead Southeast Asia’s largest economy as it faces down the threat of climate change, as well as the mammoth project to move its capital 800 miles (1287 kilometers) northeast, from Jakarta to Nusantara. Indonesia has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty, from 43.6% of the population living on less than $2.15 a day in 2000, to 18.3% in 2010, and then just 2.5% in 2022, according to World Bank data. This week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development announced that it had decided to open accession negotiations with Indonesia — marking the first application from a Southeast Asian nation. Subianto, the favorite in the leadup to the Feb. 14 vote, campaigned on a populist program to offer free milk and lunches to every school pupil. But Yoes C. Kenawas, a research fellow at Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta, told Devex that it was never made clear where the money to pay for it would come from. For Kenawas, Subianto’s agenda — which the incoming president was keen to portray as largely a continuation of Widodo’s policies — could create contradictions in meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. For instance, the 72-year-old emphasized the need to make Indonesia less reliant on food imports after a notable spike in rice imports last year. But Kenawas warned that could trigger deforestation in areas such as Papua and Kalimantan. The country of more than 277 million people is particularly exposed to climate change, with 40% of the capital Jakarta now below sea level. A new capital on the island of Borneo is due to be inaugurated in August, though the complete shift is expected to take until 2045. On renewable energy, Kenawas said Prabowo’s focus would likely be on electric vehicle batteries and building smelters for processing nickel ore in Indonesia. Despite a nascent Just Energy Transition Partnership designed to boost investment in renewables, Kenawas predicted that Prabowo would continue to rely on coal as the main source of energy. According to the International Energy Agency, Indonesia is the world’s fourth-largest coal producer and Southeast Asia’s biggest gas supplier. China was Indonesia’s most significant development partner from 2015 to 2021, according to the Lowy Institute, disbursing $2.2 billion on average annually over the period, followed by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Much of Beijing’s disbursements went to infrastructure — 45% for energy projects and 26% for transport — and mostly in the form of nonconcessional loans. Chinese support dipped to $612 million in 2021, however, and Kenawas said that Subianto is more likely to be a Western-facing leader, especially to secure top-of-the-range military hardware. Finally, there are also concerns over how civil liberties will endure in the world’s third-largest democracy. Prabowo has admitted to abducting activists in the 1990s during the rule of former President Suharto. Thirteen activists are still missing, presumed dead, though Prabowo denies involvement in any killings. As Tim Lindsey, an Indonesia expert at the University of Melbourne, wrote this month before the vote: “His campaign team has heavily promoted him as a baby-faced gemoy (cute) grandpa, using viral memes [and] video clips … But Prabowo is not cute. In fact, he has repeatedly said Indonesia’s democratic system is not working and the country should return to its original 1945 constitution. This would mean unravelling most of the reforms introduced since Soeharto [Suharto] fell, which are largely based on constitutional amendments.” That could mean the end of Indonesia’s charter of human rights, independent courts, the two-term presidential limit, and it could allow the president to again control the legislature, Lindsey warned. “Of course, these changes might not be easily done, but it is a chilling prospect [under Prabowo],” he wrote. “And that may happen because much of the electorate doesn’t seem to care all that much about the consequences of picking him.”