On Thursday, March 20, a wave of protests erupted in several cities across Indonesia. Several thousand students and workers are protesting a new bill passed by the Subianto government. The bill seeks to repeal a 2004 law that barred military officers from certain positions in the country’s administration, such as the Attorney General’s Office. The proposal is provoking significant opposition, as this office is a key body in the Indonesian judicial system in charge of criminal prosecutions, enforcement of court decisions, oversight of civil and administrative cases, and the fight against corruption. The military’s recapture of this body revives the trauma of the military dictatorship that crushed the country from 1965 to 1998.

For two weeks, anger has been rife in the largest university cities. In Jakarta, several rallies have been held in front of the seat of government since last Thursday, demanding the repeal of the law. In Surabaya, fierce clashes took place between protesters and police. Reporters Without Borders denounced the police crackdown, and the assault and violent arrest of some fifteen journalists. Videos on social media show extremely violent police repression, blocking the road to ambulances, using water cannons against protesters, and brutally charging the crowd.

The protests and their repression are so strong because the 2004 revision of the law represented a line that could not be crossed for a president with a background as a military general under Suharto’s military dictatorship. The initial law, promulgated in 2004, barred members of the military from parliament, a measure designed to prevent the return of “dwifungsi,” or “dual power,” a method used by former dictator Suharto to allow the military to crush all dissent and dominate public life.

Second Wave of Protests Comes amid Crisis for Indonesian Youth

While fears of a military return to parts of the Indonesian government have been causing outrage across the general population in recent weeks, young students have already recently rebelled against the regime’s austerity measures. Nearly 1,000 young people gathered on the evening of February 21 in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta, while several thousand marched in the country’s largest cities from February 18 to 22.

These students named their movement “Indonesia Gelap,” which could be translated as “Dark Indonesia” — meant to mirror the slogan “Golden Indonesia,” used by the current president during his election campaign .

Inherited from its predecessor, the slogan refers to a hyper-growth project for Indonesia, aiming to establish it as the leading economic power in East Asia by 2045. This project of abundance rings hollow for the population and young people, who see budget cuts harshly attacking their learning conditions and their access to public services.

Nearly $19 billion has been cut from all ministries and public services, while the president announced a cut in state spending of nearly $40 billion to finance his election platform. For universities, scholarships and grants to research firms have been suspended. While 23 percent of the Indonesian population is between 16 and 30 years old, the hashtag #KarburAjaDulu (“Flee without delay”) went viral on Indonesian social media during the protests, clearly reflecting the mood of some of the country’s youth.

The President’s Aim: Rehabilitate the Army’s Image

These significant budget cuts are intended, according to the government, to implement a free meal program for 83 million children and pregnant women. But this measure was already tested in November 2024, just after the last elections, revealing the president’s true political objective: to rehabilitate the image of the army among the population through so-called “civic” work. While during the campaign, Subianto had only mentioned the beneficiaries of this program — namely, schoolchildren suffering from stunted growth and pregnant women fighting chronic diseases — he had not mentioned army soldiers as the main actors and distributors. However, out of the 190 kitchens preparing meals, around a hundred are managed by soldiers, also responsible for distribution. The strengthening of the military presence on Indonesian territory and the rehabilitation of the army in the popular consciousness are clearly linked to the latest law, allowing officers privileged access to central positions in the administration of civil life.

However, the spectre of the “New Order” military dictatorship, which traumatised the population for over 30 years, remains very present in people’s minds. The 2004 law is one example of the measures that were put in place post-dictatorship to establish the principle of “civilian supremacy.”

The establishment of a bourgeois democracy — albeit a very imperfect one — was then part of the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. The Indonesian military regime had indeed played a key role in the South Asian region in the service of U.S. imperialist interests, but had become cumbersome after the fall of the USSR. However, at a time when international tensions are rising again and the supremacy of the United States is increasingly contested, the Indonesian bourgeoisie seems increasingly nostalgic for the military regime. Indeed, the country has an essential strategic position, which could well make it a key player in the Sino-U.S. rivalry, if it does not have to suffer from too many countervailing powers internally.

A Murderous General Becomes an Antisocial President

The exposure of the militaristic aims of Subianto’s populist agenda, and the protests that followed, demonstrate a deep concern about the return of the military dictatorship. The first act of the Indonesian military regime, propelled to power by a military coup, was the genocide of between 500,000 and 3 million communist activists.

The New Order spread terror until the late 1990s, characterized by the omnipresence of military power and the ascension of generals to all government and administrative positions, brutal political repression, and close collaboration with the United States. During this time, Prabowo Subianto rose through the ranks of the army to become a general. As Suharto’s son-in-law during the dictatorship, Subianto was one of the former ruler’s right-hand men at the time.

Indicted for the kidnapping of political dissidents after the fall of the regime, Subianto was finally rehabilitated by President Joko Widodo in 2014, who appointed him Minister of Defense. He became a key ally of the Widodo clan, which was rocked in 2024 by a major corruption scandal. It was alongside the former president’s son, Gibran, that he won the elections in October 2024. During the campaign, father and son Widodo put forward numerous promises of employment and opportunities, particularly targeting young voters. While projecting an image of a benevolent grandfather, Prabowo insisted on the return of the archipelago-state’s regional hegemony, in a speech with neo-Suhartian overtones including, among other things, a major rearmament program. For the past week, the Prabowo-Widodo government has been facing political disavowal from young people, the very group it had sought to win over. In these circumstances, the anti-austerity protests herald unprecedented difficulties for the ruling alliance.

Originally published in French on April 1 in Revolution Permanente