Hardliner or cute uncle?

February 19, 2024

KUALA LUMPUR – WHO is Prabowo Subianto, the man who claimed victory in Indonesia’s presidential elections on Wednesday after unofficial counts had him winning almost 60% of the vote?

Is he a strongman, three-star general or a conservative man of the people?

Accusations of human rights violations cloud his military past, which he forged during his father-in-law’s 32-year reign – Prabowo married Titiek Suharto, former president Suharto’s second daughter.

The former Army Special Forces commander was allegedly involved in a massacre during a counterinsurgency operation in East Timor in the 1980s and is linked to the abduction of a couple of dozen student activists in 1998, an incident for which he was fired from the military.

In the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections, the president of the Gerindra party built an image as a hardline, hot-headed and tegas (firm) leader. There are various clips of a fiery Prabowo during the two elections when he stood against and lost to Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, when he famously lost his temper and banged the podium to demand “change”.

After the 2019 elections, Prabowo refused to concede defeat, and his accusations of election fraud supposedly perpetrated by his opponents sparked riots in Jakarta.

Heeding the classic advice to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, Jokowi invited his bitter rival into his government. It was a master stroke. And with his military past, it seemed to make sense to make Prabowo the Defence Minister in 2019.

So, is Prabowo a gemoy (cuddly and adorable) politician now?

Ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, Prabowo changed his tegas image to a bapak-bapak (friendly uncle) and gemoy one – and also established himself as a cat-lover. The