Indonesia's Prabowo turns ambassador

By Lauren Gumbs

Indonesian presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto has just seven months to convincingly reinvent his image as a human rights defender before the 2014 election next May.

In keeping with his portrayal as diplomatic and benevolent, Prabowo recently visited a maid on death row in Malaysia who was accused of murdering her employer, and has promised to assist her during upcoming court proceedings. He is seeking clemency for the death penalty, the first and only Indonesian official or immigration spokesman to visit Wilfrida, a 17 year old who it is believed was trafficked at age 12 to work in the neighboring country.

Despite assisting a forgotten and otherwise ignored migrant worker, the case demonstrates the level of public relations Prabowo is engaging in to rework his image as not only a diplomat, but also to remind people that he is an established elite, impeccably politically connected and influential. He was once married to one of the late strongman’s daughters, Siti Haryadi.

Many Indonesians are wary of the former general and head of the country’s Kopassus special forces unit, who courted controversy with such antics as amously bursting into the presidential palace with a firearm and demanding to see then president B.J.Habibie in an attempted coup. He denies an attempt at a takeover, but frankly admits to the fact that if he actually wanted to take power by force he could have.

Prabowo can no longer afford to be seen as impulsive and violent, instead using cases like Wilfrida’s to project a personable social justice conscience while keeping with his military and political reputation of uncompromising authority and command. He rates high in presidential election popularity polls and his Gerindra Party, has 15 million members.

Banned from entering the US because of alleged involvement in human rights abuses, Prabowo was discharged from the army in 1998 after Suharto fell. He is accused of kidnapping, human rights abuses, and an attempted coup.  He spent time in self-exile in Jordan, before emerging and transforming himself politically from a figure of loathing into an apparently strong and sincere advocate for social justice and economic nationalism.

Ten years ago, few would have thought Prabowo would manage such a public relations conjuring trick. He was accused of instigating violent crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters during the Suharto regime and during the conflict in East Timor and Papua, but he was never charged and has always maintained the allegations were rumors devised for political damage.

To questions why Indonesians would contemplate electing a man as their democratic leader who fought against reformation and how a man accused of human rights abuses could end up running for president, some cite disenchantment with other nominees, but with such charismatic potentials as Joko Widodo or the option of another well established elite in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s brother in law Eddie Pramono, this doesn’t satisfy why people are prepared to overlook a controversial history and promote someone to the highest office who once was utterly opposed to democracy.

Human rights accountability and the processes of resolving cases of atrocity, have already been partly subsumed by Prabowo’s rise to leadership in a mainstream party. Human rights abusers in Indonesia have enjoyed evasion from justice and full exposure. Only recently a film appeared that re-enacts the brutality of reformation. “Jagal” (Butcher), a banned film, highlights the military’s role in organised mass killings, and has reignited public discussion about accountability and the need for apologies and reparation.

There would be little chance of a national conversation about the sins of that era should Prabowo win.  His appeal, according to University of Western Australia Professor Krishna Sen, is similar to that of Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra as he has a large following among the rural and undereducated classes although educated urbanites are sceptical.

Despite his rhetoric about commitment to secularism and the protection of minority religious groups, the poor, and farmers, the already fragile state of democracy in Indonesia could go into recession under a leader with autocratic tendencies. Since 2007 Indonesia has not improved its democratic index and there is resistance to democratization from elites within the executive, judiciary, military, and business.

Prabowo says he  is pro strengthening government and says Indonesia needs a strong government prepared to intervene in lacklustre sections of the economy. He is also circumspect about foreign investment and market forces.

He would become an official presidential nominee if he gets the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI-P) on side as a coalition, but he will inherit a state whose transition into pluralism is as yet contingent and not inevitable by any means.

Euan Mie, a commenter in the Jakarta Globe, sarcastically sums up what many other cognisant Indonesians feel about Prabowo’s public relations campaign for president.

“If there's a principle that Prabowo has stood by his entire professional career, it's unjust executions” he said.

That image however will be given serious varnish by the time the elections roll around, as Prabowo’s billionaire older brother Hashim has commissioned a New York advertising agency to groom and polish Prabowo’s image and also donated money to Republican think tanks which will ensure he is not completely smeared by bad press in the US.

It begs the question of just how quick the US will rescind the visa ban and receive Prabowo on US soil if he is elected. Probably about as quick as Australia will.

A Prabowo win means in order to protect its interests and relationship with Indonesia, Australia would be faced with negotiating a higher level of accommodation, ethically and politically, to a potentially more belligerent and nationalist driven neighbour.

Should Prabowo get the job, a critical juncture will emerge for Australia Indonesia relations, with the possibility that the two nationalist leaders will generate tense diplomatic situations over regional issues that infringe on sovereignty, such as the Abbott government’s already controversial asylum seeker policies.

Between now and then, Prabowo’s image control will be in overdrive, seeking to saturate the media with alternate images of a diplomat rather than a soldier.  

 

Lauren Gumbs is a freelance journalist based in East Java and is also the Provincial Representative of the Indonesia Institute (Inc)