ROSS B TAYLOR: Anthony Albanese should keep a close eye on Prabowo Subianto’s power plays in Indonesia

“There is no country more important to Australia, than Indonesia”.

These words, originally spoken by Paul Keating, were echoed last month by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as he welcomed Indonesia’s relatively new President, Prabowo Subianto to Australia.

But the warm relationship currently enjoyed by both countries, belies deeper problems back home for this former “strongman” army general.

And less 14 months into his presidency, the honeymoon phase seems to be over. Rather than nurturing Indonesia’s democratic institutions, Prabowo’s early tenure shows troubling signs with the consolidation of power — a backslide that matters not just for Indonesia, but for the entire Indo Pacific region.

Prabowo is no political novice. He has long harboured ambitions for national power, with his election being a culmination of a long-held dream involving no less than three attempts at the presidency.

His first year in office however, suggests he is more interested with locking in control than strengthening democratic checks and balances. To that end, he has dramatically expanded his Cabinet — a sprawling collection of ministries and coordinating bodies so large that even Indonesian analysts joke that it requires its own map.

But the expansion is not merely bureaucratic indulgence. Prabowo has used ministerial appointments to draw in nearly every major political bloc.

Leaders or influential figures from seven of Indonesia’s eight major parties now hold senior government posts. In effect, Prabowo has co-opted almost the entire Indonesian political class.

This is coalition-building in the most transactional sense: reward your rivals until no meaningful opposition remains.

It’s as if an Australian Labor Prime Minister handed senior portfolios to the Liberals, the Greens, One Nation and a handful of Teals simultaneously — not to build unity, but to buy compliance. Unthinkable here, but now standard practice in Jakarta.

Prabowo’s ties to the past are also hard to ignore. His Suharto-era military pedigree raises inevitable questions about how comfortable he is with dissent.

His approach to governance — centralised, heavily personalised, and reliant on patronage — resembles something closer to managed autocracy than open democracy.

Expanding the nation’s military — the largest increase in decades — does little to placate worried observers about Indonesia’s strategic direction.

One of his most controversial early moves was the appointment of Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the son of his predecessor Joko Widodo (Jokowi), as vice president.

While framed as continuity, many Indonesians — especially the young — see it as brazen nepotism, and as evidence that Jokowi is now invested in securing a political dynasty rather than defending the democratic reforms that once defined his appeal.

Prabowo hoped the Jokowi brand would help lock-in the loyalty of the nation’s 135 million young voters. Instead, the backlash has been intense and that anger has been turbocharged by a stagnating economy.

Prabowo entered office promising bold, transformative growth of eight percent a year. Twelve months on, those promises have evaporated and the disappointment is most acute among young people who simply cannot find stable, well-paid work.

Indonesia’s youth unemployment and underemployment remain stubbornly high, and many find themselves locked-out of the formal economy despite rising education levels.

The picture has worsened with the tariff regime introduced by Donald Trump, whose economic nationalism has disrupted supply chains and limited export opportunities for Indonesia’s manufacturing and agricultural sectors.

For a president who openly admires Trump, these tariffs have had the ironic effect of crushing the very dreams he told young Indonesians he would uplift.

The result is visible in recent protests; some labelled the “Dark Indonesia” movement, driven by a generation that feels increasingly deceived by the political elites, and let down by economic stagnation.

Prabowo’s foreign policy only adds to the confusion. His adopted guiding mantra — a thousand friends, zero enemies — sounds broad-minded but in practice has produced inconsistency bordering on incoherence.

He has courted both China and Russia, along with a deeper involvement in international affairs including membership of BRICS, whilst simultaneously embracing Australia with a new security pact and warm personal diplomacy toward Prime Minister Albanese.

What looks to Prabowo like strategic flexibility, looks to others like directionless opportunism. Indonesia’s foreign ministry appears adrift, unsure whether it is managing pragmatic non-alignment or serving as a prop in Prabowo’s bid to reinvent himself from a disgraced general to a statesman of global consequence.

Whether Prabowo can manage the growing restlessness among Indonesia’s youth — who increasingly despise the political elites and their acts of self-interest — remains to be seen.

But one thing is clear: Indonesia’s democratic backsliding will have serious consequences for its 285 million citizens, and for the region.

Leaders in Thailand, Malaysia, and beyond will be watching closely.

And so should Australia.

Ross B. Taylor is a former WA Commissioner to Indonesia & an Advisory Board Member of the UWA International Public Policy Institute.