Photos at the inauguration of president Prabowo Subianto and vice president Gibran Rakabuming Raka at the parliament building in Jakarta on October 18, 2024. Some retired generals have called for Gibran's removal. - AFP
JAKARTA: The Indonesian Military (TNI) faces bubbling tensions after calls for the impeachment of Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka led to an attempt to reshuffle the roster of high-ranking officers, potentially exposing a political rift previously not seen in an otherwise disciplined institution.
Last week, President Prabowo Subianto relayed a cautious response through Special Presidential Advisor on Political and Security Affairs Wiranto to appease demands from the group to remove “corrupt ministers” and unseat the vice president.
The group said Gibran’s nomination in the last election, paved by a last-minute controversial Constitutional Court ruling, violated procedural rules. Shortly thereafter, TNI chief Gen. Agus Subiyanto, who rose to power under Prabowo’s predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, Gibran’s father, issued an order to reassign more than 200 senior officers, including Lt. Gen. Kunto Arief Wibowo.
Kunto is the son of former vice president Try Sutrisno, who is among the retired generals demanding Gibran’s removal. However, a day after the announcement, Agus abruptly canceled Kunto’s reassignment from his position as the commander of First Joint Defence Regional Command (Kogabwilhan I), which covers the land, water and air areas from Sumatra to Kalimantan.
The swift correction of the reshuffle, on top of the retirees’ demands, has since drawn scrutiny toward the military, long seen as an organisation with unwavering support for each of the country’s sitting administrations.
“For an organisation that is so well organised and well planned, the walk back from reassigning high-ranking officers did indicate that there are competing interests within the TNI,” military analyst Aditya Batara Gunawan of Bakrie University said on Sunday (May 4).
On Friday, another group of military retirees pledged their full support for the current government in an apparent effort to counter the demands of the first group of retired officers. Indonesia Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies executive director Rizal Darma Putra said the competing aspirations of the two different groups of retired officers showed the cracks of unity among them, which might be a hint at the split among active officers.
“The fact that the first group does not share their demands with official Army retiree groups like the PEPABRI [Veterans Association] or the PPAD [Association of Army Retirees] also shows that there is already a rift among the retirees,” Rizal said.
He said that releasing the demands to the public alone would “surely influence the perspective of active officers toward the current political situation”. The reassignment of Try’s son Kunto from Kogabwilhan I to a less strategic special staffer position at the TNI headquarters initially came as a surprise given that Kunto is widely regarded as a rising star.
While a special staffer holds no operational command and is widely seen as having no real authority or a clear career path, Kunto has held a string of influential commands, including leading the Siliwangi Regional Military Command from 2022 to 2023.
Kunto was supposed to be replaced by Rear Admiral Hersan, commander of the Navy’s 3rd Fleet Command (Koarmada III) early last week, until the TNI chief walked back part of the personnel shake-up and issued a new decree a day later to revoke the transfers of Kunto, Hersan and five other senior officers.
Military expert Anton Aliabbas from Paramadina University noted that a military reshuffle cancellation is rare, and the quick turnaround might “provoke various [public] interpretations, including about a conflict inside the military”.
“I believe this is the first time in history that a reshuffle was canceled in just one day,” Anton said. But Institute for Security and Strategic Studies cofounder Khairul Fahmi disagreed, saying that the cancellation simply showed that there is “always room for flexibility in the military’s strategic decision-making.”
TNI spokesperson Brig. Gen. Kristomei Sianturi has denied any political motives behind Kunto’s reassignment, insisting that the reshuffle was solely based on “organisational needs”.
“This has nothing to do with that. [Try] is a retired TNI officer and no longer part of the military [chain of command]. His action also did not result in [Kunto’s reassignment],” Kristomei told a press conference on Friday.
Kristomei also shrugged off speculations of an internal rift in the TNI when asked for comment by The Jakarta Post on Sunday. “The TNI remains solid [...] The retirees have their right to have an opinion in a democratic country, but it has nothing to do with active TNI soldiers.” - The Jakarta Post/ANN
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