The former general was discharged from the military in August 1998 for his role in the kidnapping but was never brought to trial. The dismissal occurred just months after Suharto’s reign ended in May of that year, following widespread student protests at the height of the Asian Financial Crisis.
But 52 per cent of Indonesia’s eligible voters are under 40 years of age, meaning they were not yet born or too young to understand much about the human rights abuse allegations pitted against Mr Prabowo.
“Prabowo’s human rights record is only discussed by his rivals, activists, academics and those who have a university education,” Mr Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s Indonesia Studies Programme and executive director of think tank Indikator Politik, told CNA.
According to a 2022 study by the Indonesian Population and Civil Registration office, only 6.41 per cent of Indonesia’s 275 million population had a university diploma. The same study also states that 35 per cent of Indonesians or 95 million people never finished elementary school.
In the 27 years since the kidnappings took place, previous governments have been unable or appeared reluctant to bring Mr Prabowo to face justice.
Mr Djayadi Hanan, executive director of think tank, Indonesian Survey Institute said the impunity Mr Prabowo seems to enjoy has made many Indonesians suspicious of the credibility of these accusations.
“The same generals who court-martialed and sacked Prabowo were in his campaign team. So for many Indonesians the allegations against Prabowo are political,” Mr Djayadi told CNA.
POLITICAL MAKEOVER
This is Mr Prabowo’s third time vying for the top job in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
In the 2014 and 2019 elections, he positioned himself as a stern and decisive military man, a sharp contrast to the casual man of the people image of his then-rival, Mr Joko Widodo. Mr Prabowo lost both elections to Jokowi, as the current outgoing president is popularly known.
This time around, Mr Prabowo’s campaign team positioned the former general as an adorable grandpa, softening his image through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate a digital persona which made Mr Prabowo appear youthful and childlike.
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2024-02-16 02:57:00Z
CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS9pbmRvbmVzaWEtcHJlc2lkZW50aWFsLWVsZWN0aW9uLXByYWJvd28tc3ViaWFudG8tNDEyNzkzMdIBAA
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