On the 20th October, Prabowo Subianto was sworn in as Indonesia’s 8th President. Having won a convincing majority in the presidential election earlier in the year, the transition from now-former president Joko Widodo to Prabowo attests to the apparent strength of the electoral process since Indonesia transitioned to a democracy in the late 90s. But the election of Prabowo – a former general who has been accused of numerous human rights violations – poses a series of questions over the direction of Indonesian democracy, development, and the protection of civic and religious freedoms. As Southeast Asia’s largest economy and most populous nation, these questions hold regional and international significance.
To better understand what Prabowo’s presidency may mean, the LSE has invited a number of academics and experts to provide their insight as part of a blog series examining what Prabowo’s tenure may mean for Indonesia and the world. Here Papang Hidayat discusses what Prabowo’s election means for civil society organisations.
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Prabowo Subianto’s February landslide electoral victory as the eighth President of Indonesia is the culmination of a democratic U-turn in Indonesia. At least that is the view of most civil society organizations (CSOs) in the country. 10 years ago, Indonesian CSOs mobilized most of their resources to participate in tactical politics by supporting Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, who was Prabowo’s rival at that time. Not only was Prabowo involved in serious human rights violations on various occasions during the New Order era (1966-1998) under his then father in-law’s administration; he also has a background as a big businessman profiting from natural resource exploitation and use of Islamic vigilante groups in his political projects over the past two decades. For the first time after the 1998 Reform era Indonesian CSOs are starting to think it is time to prepare a mitigating strategy for their survival; defending the defenders.
For more than twenty-five years, Indonesian CSOs have been guardians of Indonesia’s democracy, promoting the advancement of human rights and raising awareness of ecological injustices. Indonesian CSOs are very active in playing the role of watchdog, empowering grassroot communities, and conducting transnational advocacy through various international platforms. Furthermore, through critical engagement with lawmakers, Indonesian CSOs assist in enacting policies that support good governance, human rights, and climate justice at both the regional and the national levels. They are willing to work with the authorities while maintaining organizational independence. It is very common that an NGO will issue a press statement to criticize certain policy while also lobbying the authorities to pass a new policy.
Although Indonesia has experienced democratic regression for the last decade, CSOs have still been important actors in the passage of laws such as the Sexual Violence Crimes Law (UU TPKS). This is a landmark law as the criminal justice system did not previously provide criminal procedures for dealing with sexual violence or offer reparations and compensation to victims. Yet at the same time, there remains much to be done. There has been little progress in addressing past serious human rights violations, including the mass atrocities of 1965/66 that saw the death, torture, or disappearance of millions of individuals suspected of being part of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). This is despite President Jokowi announcing official regret for past serious human rights violations in the country.
‘Critical engagement’ has therefore become common within CSO advocacy tactics, as has collaboration among CSOs themselves and between CSOs and government. But Prabowo’s election has made most CSOs rethink advocacy through ‘critical engagement’. Some CSOs will have no choice but to critically engage with Prabowo’s government even on difficult matters. This is especially the case amongst conventional human rights CSOs whose campaign for state accountability for human rights violations will ultimately focus on events in which Prabowo himself played a role. Prabowo was involved in various cases of serious human rights violations, such as extrajudicial executions, torture, enforced disappearances in Aceh, West Papua, Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor), and the instigation and orchestration of the May 1998 riots, in which there were rapes of ethnic-Chinese women. Almost all of the above events have been documented by formal investigations, either by Komnas HAM (the National Human Rights Commission) or the government, or by internal military investigations.
At the same time, many CSOs are concerned that the consolidation of power in the executive and parliamentary bodies by a Prabowo government will make it difficult for CSOs to propose a strategic policy agenda that is pro-human rights. Currently there are several legislative reforms that remain unfinished, such as the ratification of the Domestic Worker Protection Draft Law and the Indigenous People Draft Law. Further, there is concern that the involvement of CSOs in the legislative process will become ineffectual. This is especially true for legislation that is considered to endanger democracy and human rights; such as proposed amendments to the National Police Law that will give the police more authority outside the control of external oversight, and in relation to amendments to the Military (TNI) Law which will allow the military to play a role in business and civilian life.
An unpublished survey from a donor agency I was involved in provides a rough picture of Indonesian CSOs’ tactics in advocating for policy change. The survey, distributed online in June–August this year, was filled out by 55 people representing NGOs working in policy advocacy from different thematic areas (e.g. conventional human rights, women’s rights, and environmental rights). The survey found that almost all CSO activists are pessimistic that there will be any positive policy changes under Prabowo Administration, but they still think that ‘critical engagement’ can be carried out to pass better policies both at the national and local level. From in-depth interviews accompanying the survey, the respondents still believe that a progressive agenda in human rights, good governance, women rights and environmental justice can be achieved from engagement between CSOs, who can provide progressive discourse, and some progressive lawmakers as the result of more than two decades of productive engagement in the policy space in Indonesia. But Prabowo – who has historical and ideological ties to the authoritarian regime of Suharto – casts a heavy shadow over the prospects for such engagement.
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*The views expressed in the blog are those of the author alone. They do not reflect the position of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, nor that of the London School of Economics and Political Science.