A DOZEN MASKED COMMANDOS CROUCH inside a jet black dinghy as it carves across shimmering Jakarta Bay. At the bow, loops of 12.7-mm bullets spill from a tribarreled Gatling gun; at the stern, Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia's Defense Minister and President-elect, appraises the fishing boats and rusting refueling stations that pepper the inky water.
As the dinghy docks at Muara Angke, a slum perched on the northern shore of Indonesia's sprawling capital, the 72-year-old Prabowo clambers onto land and plunges into a cheering crowd, shaking hands and kissing babies. In his wake, aides pass out plastic trinkets from trash bags to barefooted kids.
It feels like a campaign stop, but Prabowo isn't campaigning: he already won Indonesia's highest office with over 58% of the vote in February elections, and will be inaugurated on Oct. 20. That landslide saw over 96 million votes cast for the former general-the most ever for a single candidate anywhere in recorded. history. It was two weeks before polling day that Prabowo last stopped by Muara Angke, only to be "heartbroken," he says, by its pauperized inhabitants wallowing waist-deep in floodwater filled with human excrement and discarded mussel shells. (Harvesting the seafood is the main local industry.)
Prabowo immediately ordered the National Defense University to construct 200 new low-cost floating and stilted houses fitted with solar panels, indoor bathrooms, and filtered drinking water. This return trip in August was simply to kick the tires and inspect whether all was shipshape-though the deafening three-syllable chants of "Pra-bo-wo!" telegraphed the local reaction even before he had stepped onto the dock.
"It's heartwarming," Prabowo tells TIME of his reception, in his first Western-media interview since his election victory. "But it's also sad. The way these people lived. And there's still so much work to do."
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