Protesters in Indonesia took to the streets on Friday to demand the electoral authority stop former army general Prabowo Subianto, who is accused of committing human rights abuses, from taking office as the next president amid allegations of electoral fraud.
Indonesia held elections on February 14, 2024. Prabowo Subianto, the current Minister of Defense under outgoing President Widodo, claimed victory with a significant margin of 58 percent of the votes in an unofficial count on Wednesday. The same night, he told supporters that it was a victory for all Indonesians.
The other two leading candidates, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Basweden, have refused to concede to the unofficial results and have urged their supporters to wait for the count to conclude. In addition, they allege Subianto’s victory came on the back of electoral fraud. Protesters marched in the capital city and across the country, targeting the country’s General Elections Commission. They demonstrated their anguish over the apparent presidential victory of Subianto and demanded justice for the victims of his alleged atrocities.
Subianto, 72, was the son-in-law of Suharto, an authoritarian leader of Indonesia whose government fell in 1988, and a long-term commander in the army’s special forces, Kopassus. Subianto was dishonorably discharged from the position after Kopassus soldiers kidnapped and tortured political activists in 1988. He then went into voluntary exile in Jordan.
Out of the 22 kidnapped individuals, 13 are still missing. Subianto has denied the allegations. In addition, he has been accused of involvement in human rights abuses in Papua and Timor-Leste, including a 1983 massacre wherein hundreds of people were killed. Subianto was at one point banned from entering the United States for his alleged human rights abuses, although he has never been convicted.
This was Subianto’s third attempt at the presidency. In the past two elections, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court rejected Subianto’s bids to overturn Widodo’s victory and dismissed his claims of widespread fraud as groundless.
