At the time of writing, unofficial “quick count” results based on samples of votes from polling stations show that Prabowo Subianto is likely to win Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election in a single round. The vote counting will take over a month to be finalised, with the official results due on 20 March.
Based on data from various news and polling company sources, the percentage of national votes that Prabowo Subianto has won is in the range of 57-59 per cent. This is against his two opponents, Anies Baswedan (with about 24 per cent) and Ganjar Pranowo (with about 16 per cent). A run-off will not likely take place. A two-round election has not happened since 2004, the first time Indonesia ran a direct presidential election. Prabowo’s victory means that President Joko Widodo’s oldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is now the vice president in waiting.
Prabowo might have made his victory speech late on Valentine’s Day, but neither Anies nor Ganjar have conceded defeat.
In 2019, Prabowo alleged that the election was marred by irregularities and protested Widodo’s win. There are now signs that his opponents might challenge the 2024 results, alleging interference, inaccuracies or deliberate miscounting and calling for their supporters to monitor the counting as the actual votes are tallied.
Prior to election day, there were reports of suspected tampering with overseas ballots, widespread vote-buying, alleged manipulation of social media, including the use of deepfakes, and continued politicking and campaigning during the three-day cooling period (11-13 February). Mother Nature caused a voting delay in Central Java’s Demak, which was flooded. In Central Papua, locals reportedly destroyed the official ballot boxes and ballots due to alleged “miscommunication”. In the days after the election, Kompas Data indicated that at least seven provinces faced “logistical and administrative problems”, while the Election Commission announced that over two thousand polling stations would do a re-vote.
In the final pre-election stretch, the Prabowo-Gibran team rode out several controversies. There were student protests, academic critiques, and other criticisms against Widodo’s “meddling” in the election as the sitting president. Just days before voting, three academics released a documentary titled “Dirty Vote”. They alleged that fraud had dominated the electoral process. The controversies, however, failed to dent Prabowo’s upward trajectory in the electability ratings or his electoral performance.
The locus of Prabowo’s support was Central Java (where he took 53 per cent of the vote, using Tempo’s numbers as of 18 February) and East Java (66 per cent). The two provinces are accurate harbingers of who will win the election. In 2019, candidate Widodo had handily taken these two provinces and also won in North Sumatra, West Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, North Bali, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua, and West Papua. This time, Prabowo won outright majorities or the largest vote share in a staggering 36 of Indonesia’s 38 provinces, according to Tempo.
Identity politics did not come to the fore, unlike in 2019. The Prabowo-Gibran team built a large campaign coalition by borrowing Widodo’s pluralist strategy. Others have attributed this to how the political elite came together pragmatically, giving up whatever ideological or programmatic differences they might have held.
No doubt the Anies-Muhaimin Iskandar (AMIN) and Ganjar-Mahfud MD teams will be analysing the reasons for their loss, even as they have not officially conceded defeat.
First, Widodo’s clear thumb on the scales tipping things in favour of his son and Prabowo is a key factor for their win, even accounting for potential vote miscounting and alleged voter intimidation.
Second, from the start, Team AMIN and Ganjar-Mahfud’s campaigns had inherent weaknesses that prevented them from swinging their popularity upwards sufficiently or, in Ganjar’s case, arresting the fall in his electability ratings. They tried to play the gentleman’s game by not attacking Prabowo on his human rights record. At any rate, he brushed off the attacks casually in the presidential debates. This and other factors have led to an uneven understanding among Indonesia’s youngest voters of his controversial military career.
Future analyses may diagnose whether Anies’ and Ganjar’s social media campaigns were off the mark or too late off the blocks to capture the youth vote. Compared to the public relations juggernaut launched by Prabowo-Gibran, who dominated TikTok (with 125 million users in Indonesia), Anies and Ganjar played catch up. Pre-election surveys on electability left clues as to why the electorate was less attracted to these two candidates.
Team AMIN won just in Aceh and West Sumatra, and is apparently tied for vote share with Prabowo-Gibran in the Jakarta metropolitan area. (One of the authors will examine in a later Fulcrum why Ganjar performed disappointingly even in his base, Central Java and Yogyakarta.)
Table 1. Prabowo-Gibran Presumptive Winners
Source: Author's compilation from public sources *Margin of error for quick counts: 1.8%; authors' estimate of spoilt votes (golput).
Turning to the general election (GE) vote for Indonesia’s legislators in the House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR), it will be interesting to see if presumptive president-elect Prabowo invites his opponents to join in a big tent coalition, similar to how Widodo co-opted Prabowo as defence minister.
With its estimated national vote-share of about 16-17 per cent, Ganjar’s party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, PDI-P, chaired by Megawati Sukarnoputri, now leads the league for parliamentary seats. This means it can lead the opposition, which will make passing laws harder for Prabowo’s government and can be seen as partial consolation for losing the presidency and vice presidency.
Estimates show that Prabowo’s Gerindra is third with about 13 per cent and Golkar second with about 14 per cent. Analysts are already warning that Prabowo might suffer from a “bloated” Cabinet because he would have to cobble together more support to push through laws and policies, given the weaker GE showing of his coalition. As of now, only eight parties look set to enter the DPR — the others are the Democrat Party (PD), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and those in Anies’ coalition: his running mate Muhaimin Iskandar’s National Awakening Party (PKB), NasDem (National Democrats), and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
Will Prabowo-Gibran extend an olive branch to PDI-P/ Megawati and Ganjar-Mahfud? There are indications that PDI-P’s leadership is unlikely to accept a gesture of reconciliation, with their spokesperson saying that the party stands ready to be in the Opposition.
Among the ten parties that contested but failed to reach the threshold of four per cent of the GE vote to secure a parliamentary seat is the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), led by Widodo’s youngest son Kaesang Pangarep. This twist denies the Widodo clan additional insurance in the form of a party vehicle.
For now, Anies does not look likely to join Prabowo’s cabinet; there is no reporting indicating that Prabowo has invited Anies to do so anyway. In Anies’ coalition, however, are second-tier parties who might still become junior partners for Prabowo if the incentives dangled are sufficiently attractive. On 18 February, NasDem chief Surya Paloh met Widodo for a four-eye discussion, widely speculated to be about cabinet spoils.
Given the emotions that ran high prior to voting day, whether the university campus movements and civil society will maintain their pressure on Widodo to account for his support of Prabowo-Gibran will be key to the tenor of Widodo’s final months in power. The questions now are: Would Megawati forgive Widodo for his clear disloyalty to her party? Will Widodo — and presumptive vice president Gibran — retain their PDI-P membership now that the party has been forced to choose between two candidates? After the GE involving the masses, we will wait for the horse-trading process among the elite to resolve these questions.
Julia Lau is a Senior Fellow and Co-Coordinator of the Indonesia Studies Programme, and Editor, Fulcrum at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute.
Made Supriatma is a Visiting Fellow in the Indonesia Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. Made’s research focus is on Indonesian politics, civil-military relations, and ethnic/identity politics and he is also a freelance journalist.
Yanuar Nugroho is Visiting Senior Fellow, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He was the former Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of Indonesia 2015-2019.
This article originally appeared on the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute's Fulcrum on 19 February 2024.