Several foreign media and political pundits are concerned that President-elect Prabowo Subianto will crack down on democracy and undermine the country’s democratic achievements that was kicked off by the reform movement in 1998 (in which Prabowo was widely accused -but never proven or even put on trial- of being the person behind the disappearances and deaths of many student activists).
I don’t think they have much to worry about because Jokowi has already done that. The so called savior of democracy who defeated Prabowo in two consecutive Presidential elections has actually led the democratic backsliding of the country over the last decade.
Jokowi’s government is or has:
• banning investigative journalism (yes, for real),
• jailed journalists for doing their jobs
• subverting constitutional law to allow his son to run as VP
• removed a constitutional court judge that didn’t agree with them and revising constitutional court term limits to remove others
• extended term limit for village chiefs longer than the presidential term limit
• bypassed legislative process more than once to pass comprehensive overarching laws.
• floated suggestions that Jokowi be allowed to extend his Presidential term or change the constitution to allow him to run for a third term
Those are just examples off the top of my head.
Indonesia has gone from being consistently above Malaysia on the Democracy Index to below in 2017 and stayed there throughout Jokowi’s second term, all without Singapore’s economic and political stability to offset the condition.
Prabowo may have a certain level of contempt for journalists but Jokowi has actually taken steps to silence them. Indonesia doesn’t need Prabowo to undo the reforms sought and fought for since 1998, it is already happening.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu?tab=chart&country=AUS~IDN~MYS~SGP~OWID_ASI
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