Foreign Media Highlights Prabowo's Potential Presidency: Economic Challenges Ahead for Indonesia

Thea Fathanah Arbar, CNBC Indonesia

Wednesday, 02/21/2024 08:58 IWST

Photo: Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka giving their speech at Istora Senayan. (Youtube Screenshot of Gibran Rakabuming Raka)

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Foreign media is again highlighting presidential candidate number 2 Prabowo Subianto. This time it is a question of the Indonesian economy if Prabowo officially occupies the position of number one person in Indonesia.

Media from Singapore, Channel News Asia (CNA)contains an opinion article entitled ‘Commentary: With Prabowo poised to be next Indonesia president, his challenge is to ensure Cabinet continuity’. The page quotes an analysis by Andree Surianta, recipient of a PhD Australia Awards at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, which was first published by the Lowy Institute, The Interpreter.

This analysis states that Prabowo has promised to continue the grand coalition style and large infrastructure program promoted by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). Prabowo also promised to increase defense spending and social assistance.

“A grand coalition usually means offering ministerial posts in exchange for party loyalty. However, the revenue strategy remains unclear, so funding these programs will likely require more government debt,” the analysis reads.

“The potential for loosening public debt discipline is triggering investor concerns, considering that Indonesia has been praised for its wise fiscal management under the leadership of current Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati,” he added.

“His (Sri Mulyani’s) departure is expected to exacerbate these concerns and present the first major challenge to Prabowo’s efforts to maintain his leadership,” he explained again, referring to the possibility that Sri Mulyani would no longer be in Prabowo’s new cabinet.

As is known, during the presidential election campaign there was a number of speculations about the resignation of ministers. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani is reportedly among those who have the potential to resign, apart from Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimuljono and Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi.

“Sri Mulyani served under two presidents and won international awards for successfully bringing Indonesia through various economic crises,” he added.

“Basuki Hadimuljono has been present since Jokowi’s first term in office and is a key figure in the provision of infrastructure, especially the massive effort to build a new national capital. Retno Marsudi was also registered in 2014 and has since proven to be a skilled diplomat capable of preventing the G20 Summit chaos amid rising tensions in Europe,” he added, naming two other ministers.

It was discussed how these rumors had triggered action in the financial markets. Including the massive selling of Indonesian government bonds by foreign investors.

“Anxiety has subsided somewhat, with all ministers so far still holding out. However there is a general assumption that this will not continue after October 2024 when Jokowi’s term ends,” he added.

“Prabowo must choose his replacement ministers very carefully to ease the concerns of international investors and convey a message of continuity,” he said again.

So far Prabowo is ahead in the presidential election which was held on February 14. He dominates the quick count and also the real count of the General Election Commission (KPU).

Seen CNBC Indonesiaon site Wednesday until 05.30 WIB, the total number of votes received had reached 73.32%.

From this data, Prabowo and his partner Gibran Rakabuming Raka received 58,549,849 votes or around 58.77%. Meanwhile Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Insakandar (Cak Imin) received 24.25% of the votes, around 24,157,462.

On the other hand, candidate pair number 3, Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD, are in last position. This pair’s vote share was 16.98% or around 16,914,095.

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