Former general linked to human rights abuses elected as Indonesias next president

Ben Bland, Chatham House:

Well, it's a remarkable result really for someone with a checkered track record, as you rightly highlighted, but someone who's shown remarkable persistence.

So, after he was dismissed from the military in 1998, Prabowo entered the kind of new democratic politics in post-reform Indonesia. And he's tried multiple times to get the presidency, including two really bitterly fought contests against the current president, Jokowi, as he's known, which Prabowo lost.

And then Jokowi appointed him his defense minister to sort of bring him into the tent, as it were, and that eventually led to this unofficial alliance, where Jokowi's son became Prabowo's V.P. candidate. And Prabowo has really ridden on the back of Jokowi — Jokowi's incredible popularity to finally make, it seems, into the presidential palace.

And I think the appeal was in part his own kind of strongman, tough guy image, but that wasn't enough. It was really the implicit backing of Jokowi, whose economic reforms, his economic growth that he's achieved in Indonesia has made him really, really popular with approval ratings of something like 80 percent at the end of his second term, which is something that most U.S. presidents would kill for.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2Bjsri%2Fx6isq2ejnby4e8WoqaadomK0prrEq5ilZZyeu6yxw2arqGWYqrqiuoyroKCgpKh6oq7UrJysZZWhsqTAxJ1kmqtdnrulu82eqqKZo2K7psTTZqernaOesaa60w%3D%3D