Prabowo's Hegemonic Presidency and Its Discontents

The first year of Prabowo Subianto's presidency has proven neither benign nor catastrophic for Indonesia's democracy. Prabowo has effectively used the political model he inherited from Joko Widodo to maintain tight control over his cabinet and the legislature, while taking a newly assertive approach in his dealings with the bureaucracy, local government and big business. The ease with which he has subordinated other elites speaks to the institutionalisation of what I call the ‘hegemonic presidency’ as a key feature of Indonesia's decidedly illiberal, though not yet autocratic, regime. At the same time, the year's events have shown the possible fragility of this new equilibrium, as the macroeconomic trends that underpinned Joko Widodo's political dominance fade, and as Prabowo embraces a policy agenda less targeted at voters’ immediate hip-pocket concerns than Widodo's. A wave of mass protests, culminating in significant urban unrest in late August, has revealed how popular frustration with a dysfunctional democracy is merging with economic angst to broaden the sources of anti-government contentious politics. Whereas Widodo's dominance among elites and the electorate went hand in hand, under Prabowo the former is consolidating while the latter appears precarious. The coming years are likely to test how resilient the hegemonic presidency proves to challenging economic conditions.