Is Prabowo a seat warmer, or will he stamp his mark on presidency?

Analysts question if Indonesia’s next leader will remain loyal to President Widodo

- Arlina Arshad

JAKARTA - It is victory at last for front runner Prabowo Subianto, after unofficial quick count results in the Feb 14 polls indicated he had won Indonesia's presidency with nearly 60 per cent of the vote.

At 72 years old, Mr Prabowo was the oldest candidate in the race, his third presidential bid after two unsuccessful runs against President Joko Widodo in 2014 and 2019.

After a controversial military career, he joined politics in 2004 and has proved to be resilient. His first taste of election politics was in 2009, when he paired up with fifth president Megawati Sukarnoputri as her vice-presidential candidate, but they were defeated.

A year earlier in 2008, Mr Prabowo co-founded the Gerindra political party and has been its chair since 2014. Under his leadership, Gerindra has risen to become the third-largest party in Parliament with 78 seats.

In this election, he attempted to reinvent himself, ditching his tough-talking military man persona for a more approachable figure. His rallies were energising, featuring catchy music and his trademark "gemoy" or cute dance moves, which have now become the stuff of Zumba workout classes here.

While he did not receive any explicit endorsement from Mr Widodo, he is enjoying a spike in popularity from his association with his old political foe-turned-friend, better known as Jokowi, whose leadership approval ratings exceeded 70 per cent.

Five years have passed since Mr Prabowo angrily protested against the results of the highly polarising 2019 presidential polls, which led to two days of violent riots in Jakarta, with at least eight lives lost and hundreds more injured in clashes.

In what is widely believed to be a political quid pro quo, he then became Mr Widodo's defence minister, a role he assumed in 2019.