Resisting militarism and capitalism in Indonesia
Over the past six years, Indonesia has experienced repeated waves of mass protest in response to “democratic backsliding”—the erosion of post-1998 reforms and the increasingly visible role of the armed forces in politics. The persistence of these protests, mobilising students and workers, demonstrates a determination to defend democratic rights and economic gains won by the preceding Reformasi generation—those who forced a period of political and social reform after the ousting of the dictator Suharto. Success, however, will require confronting the Indonesian state’s combined military, economic and political power.
Prabowo Subianto, a former commander of the Indonesian army’s special forces unit (Kopassus), secured the presidency in a remarkable political turnaround last year. Twenty-seven years ago, he was expelled from the military after allegations that his unit abducted and tortured pro-democracy student activists. Soon after, he entered exile in Jordan. At the time, Prabowo was married to a daughter of President Suharto, the army general who had seized power amid the mass killing of alleged communists in 1965-66. Many expected Prabowo to succeed his father-in-law, but the pro-democracy Reformasi movement forced Suharto to resign in 1998, and the dictatorship was ended.
Reformasi, spearheaded by university students in 1997, swelled into a nationwide uprising, drawing in workers and the urban poor. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, coupled with endemic corruption and nepotism, turned economic hardship into political rage. The movement’s demands included Suharto’s removal, the weeding out of corruption, free and fair elections, the abolition of the “dual function” that gave the military both security and political roles, and prosecutions for human rights abuses. Indonesia’s first post-Reformasi direct presidential election in 2004 resulted in the victory of another former general, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The army never vanished from politics, however. While Reformasi established civilian constitutional supremacy and direct presidential elections, the armed forces retained far-reaching influence. As Aldi, an Indonesian socialist activist, recently related during a conversation in Java, the country’s most populous island: “There was no trial for human rights perpetrators, and no seizure of military-owned businesses. The military remained central to state-controlled industries”. The election of Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”), a former furniture exporter and mayor of Solo, a city in central Java, in 2014 was seen abroad as a landmark civilian victory. Yet Jokowi reintegrated the military, appointing retired generals to ministerial posts.
Simultaneously, the new president narrowed democratic space. In 2019, parliament diluted the independence of the Corruption Eradication Commission, created in 2002 as a signature Reformasi institution. The 2020 “Omnibus Law”—officially the Job Creation Law—savaged labour and environmental protections to woo investment, provoking large street protests. In the final months of his presidency, Jokowi pushed electoral law changes widely interpreted as paving the way for his sons’ political careers, including lowering the age requirement for vice-presidential candidates to permit his elder son’s nomination alongside Prabowo in the 2024 election.
None of this happened without resistance. Each measure triggered mass protests. In 2019, “Reformasi corrupted” became the rallying cry; 2020 saw “Reject the Omnibus Law”; 2023-24 featured “State of Emergency Warning”. Mobilisations frequently occurred with less than 24 hours’ notice via social media, drawing tens of thousands. But, as Aldi notes, the protests lacked sustained leadership: “Because of the low level of political consciousness and the lack of an organisation that can lead the movement, it’s very easy for these protests to be beaten back by the regime”.
Jokowi’s alignment with Prabowo was the final straw for liberals who had viewed him as a bulwark against authoritarian restoration. His endorsement, and his son’s vice-presidential slot on Prabowo’s ticket, symbolised the collapse of “lesser evil” logic in Indonesian electoral politics.
Once in office, Prabowo moved to rewrite the Reformasi-era military law, allowing more serving officers to take cabinet posts. Protests broke out in more than 60 cities. In Bandung, some clashes with riot police lasted overnight. Lacking central coordination, the movement ebbed once the law passed.
Prabowo’s victory was underpinned by longstanding army-economic integration. “During the [Reformasi] period of political decentralisation, the military was still centrally involved in economic life, so it was easy for them to pick up business projects in local areas”, Aldi says. “The military has big stakes in timber, nickel, coal, palm oil and the wood industry. Because of this, their involvement in policy making has been embraced by civilian elites all this time: it’s not surprising that Prabowo won the 2024 election with their support. His supporters in the military also utilised what is called the ‘territorial command’. This is like a state within a state, where the military has administrative representation at the village, subdistrict, district and provincial levels.”
Put simply, the military is the strongest section of the Indonesian ruling class. The civilian sections of the capitalist class rely on it to organise big economic infrastructure projects and manage the population. This means that any fight against militarism in Indonesia will inevitably be a fight against the entire structure of Indonesian capitalism.
For protesters, the stakes are twofold. One is the fear of a return to New Order–era abuses: arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killings and military-ordered massacres. The other is a defence of liberal-democratic norms: civil liberties, the rule of law and free elections. A small but growing bloc of leftist organisations and trade unions now advocates a break from both authoritarian nationalism and liberal capitalism.
Those who are building that kind of organisation face difficult conditions. It remains illegal to build Marxist organisations in Indonesia. Police spies and criminal thugs have a history of infiltrating and intimidating successful leftist groups. The workers’ movement has stagnated for some time and is dominated by conservative union bureaucracies. Sections of the workers’ movement have even supported Prabowo rather than joining the protests against him.
Still, there are hopeful signs. “Many young people are now attending our meetings”, Aldi says. Whether this politicisation can be transformed into a durable force capable of posing a political alternative remains an open question. There are undoubtedly more challenges to come. Every new showdown raises the stakes, as the military tries to suffocate democratic opposition to its khaki-clad capitalist empire. But every skirmish allows revolutionaries to test their arguments and build independent organisations.
