President Joko Widodo (centre) awarding Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto the rank of honorary four-star general in Jakarta in this file picture from Feb. 28, 2024. - AFP
JAKARTA: Outgoing President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo’s apparent friendly interaction with president-elect Prabowo Subianto during last week's iftar dinner may help defuse speculation about tensions between them, but questions remain over what the future holds for the two unlikely allies.
Jokowi hosted an iftar dinner on Thursday (March 28) at the Presidential Palace to mark the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the daylight hours. Among his guests were cabinet members.
The evening marked the last time Jokowi, who rose to the nation’s top post from humble beginnings as a political outsider, will host the annual tradition at the Presidential Palace before he leaves office in October.
Sharing the table with Jokowi that evening was his incoming successor Prabowo, the defence minister and Gerindra Party chairman, who ran in February’s election with Jokowi’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka on his ticket and who won a landslide victory.
Jokowi and Prabowo were seen chatting chummily with other guests at the table, including Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto who sat between them. Airlangga also chairs Golkar, the oldest party in the country.
“Pak Prabowo and Pak Jokowi are united. Do not pit them against each other,” Communications and Information Minister Budi Arie Setiadi, who also leads the largest network of Jokowi’s supporters, told reporters after the event when asked about the moment.
The seemingly warm interactions came after a series of awkward incidents between Jokowi and Prabowo made headlines earlier this month, prompting the public and political commentators to speculate about a potential rift between the two figures after the election.
Social media were abuzz when Jokowi, at a charity event at the Presidential Palace on March 13, shook hands with all the ministers in attendance, but snubbed Prabowo, who stood a few steps in front of Jokowi.
Prabowo then looked toward the President momentarily before he also stepped away.
Gibran was also conspicuously absent during Prabowo’s victory speech earlier in the same month in Jakarta, preferring to stay out of the limelight and attend to his work as the mayor of Surakarta, the hometown of Jokowi and the family in Central Java.
The vice president-elect has denied any ongoing rift between his father and Prabowo, saying that the President and the presidential election winner were closer than ever.
“There is no strained relationship [between them].”
But analyst Nicky Fahrizal of Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says the incidents may indicate that an undercurrent of tension is brewing between Jokowi and Prabowo.
This, he said, was fuelled by “unmet expectations of Jokowi who wants to see Prabowo continue his programmes and look after his children’s political future” in exchange for allowing the latter to ride on his popularity in the election.
That much was clear in the way that Prabowo’s camp promised Jokowi an “influential role” in shaping the next administration’s cabinet and policies but at the same time insisted that Prabowo would have the final say, Nicky said.
Major pro-Prabowo parties in the legislature have also declined to endorse a controversial passage in the newly passed amendment to a law on Jakarta that would put Gibran at the helm of a new council that analysts say would give Gibran a launch pad for his political career.
Lawmakers placed the council under Prabowo instead, giving him the authority to appoint the head of the council.
“Prabowo has made it growingly clear that he is the one who will be fully in control, shaping his cabinet and government programmes with his vision once he becomes the president,” Nicky said.
Prabowo has been seeking to improve his political footing after the election, reaching out to rival camps, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) whose relations with Jokowi have deeply soured since the President allowed his son to run as Prabowo’s running mate.
“By inviting the PDI-P to the government, Prabowo is trying to distance himself from Jokowi’s clout and become more independent [...],” Nicky said, adding that making the PDI-P an ally would help Prabowo secure ample political support.
Another analyst, Wasisto Raharjo of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), predicted that Prabowo would try to avoid unnecessary conflicts with anyone, particularly Jokowi, because he needed to maintain stability during the transition into his presidency.
“While it’s still too early to conclude whether there's tension, especially because Prabowo has yet to be inaugurated, one thing that is more certain is that we should expect to see Prabowo try to unite all political elites after the elections,” Wasisto said.
He said that Prabowo could also act as a mediator to warm the icy relations between Jokowi and his nominal party, the PDI-P. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
