Indonesia is on edge after riots rocked cities across the nation, posing a major challenge for President Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces general who has held office for less than a year. Demonstrators and security forces skirmished as police and government buildings were set alight and the houses of politicians, including the finance minister, were looted.
The protests have left a total of 10 people dead in the escalating violence—stirring uneasy memories of 1998, when riots toppled the dictator Suharto, Prabowo’s father-in-law. While all concede that the situation today is less serious, the current wave of disturbances reflects a bubbling popular discontent. Many Indonesians are worried that the government’s current mix of crackdown and concessions will fail to address the root causes behind the discontent.
The initial spark came in Jakarta on Thursday, Aug. 28, when a stray comment made by a politician about generous housing allowances for members of parliament was seized upon by online commenters. After salary and benefits, it was calculated, a legislator might get 3 million Indonesian rupiahs ($183) more a day in their housing allowances alone than the monthly minimum wage in parts of Indonesia. The figure was provocative enough to spark spontaneous protests.
The accelerant came that night, when an armored vehicle driven by members of the elite police unit Brimob—the Mobile Brigade Corps—ran over and killed a delivery driver on a motorbike, Affan Kurniawan, 21, who was passing by the demonstration. A video that circulated widely on social media showed the vehicle stop after the driver fell under its wheels before speeding off and seemingly running over Affan again when an angry crowd approached.
Massive popular outrage and calls for more demonstrations followed. Friday and Saturday saw skirmishes throughout Jakarta, which escalated into the evening. Protesters threw rocks and bottles, shot fireworks at police and government buildings, and burned down bus stops. Police and military units deployed responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Live ammunition also appears to have been used for warning shots. Starting Saturday, TikTok’s livestreaming service, which many protesters used to stream video of demonstrations, ceased to function in the country.
Some of the violence seemed random, with protesters torching pieces of infrastructure such as busways. But at other times, the crowd was deliberate in its choice of targets, which included the Jakarta Metropolitan Police headquarters, parliament, and the headquarters of Brimob.
Protests around the last location seemed particularly intense—reflecting rage over its responsibility for the death of the driver. Meanwhile, just a few hundred meters down the road, the headquarters of the Indonesian Marine Corps, which helped control crowds—but have enjoyed a reputation for restraint when dealing with protesters dating back to 1998—sat untouched. The presidential palace was also not a target.
Individual politicians who had attracted popular ire felt the heat, too. From Saturday night through early Sunday, protesters looted the houses of the minister of finance, Sri Mulyani, and two parliamentarians who were perceived by protesters as having made insensitive comments in response to outrage over their pay. Protesters carried off looted belongings, including cash, expensive watches, statues of Iron Man and Spider-Man, and even cats.
Protests in other cities focused on similar targets. In Makassar, where the violence seems to have been most serious, protesters set fire to the city’s parliament, killing three civil servants inside. Another man, suspected of being an informant for security forces, was beaten to death by crowds. In Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-biggest city, protesters set fire to the office of the deputy governor of East Java and a police station. Many other cities across the archipelago saw violent skirmishes around police and government buildings—as well as destruction of civil infrastructure.
An apparent lull was broken by a Monday night raid by police and military police on universities in Bandung, the capital of West Java—Indonesia’s most populous province.
Caught off guard, the government has tried to respond to popular anger both with promises of action to address grievances and with increasingly tough security measures. Speaking to local media Monday, Prabowo said that while people had the right to peaceful protest, he condemned the violence, hinting that he felt that hidden hands were at play behind the unrest.
“All state officials will investigate who is responsible,” he said. “I suspect there are already indications, and we will not hesitate to defend the people.”
On previous occasions, the president has blamed protests on foreign interference. Not long after Prabowo’s statement, some ministers posted messages on social media suggesting that the unrest was linked the president’s willingness to stand up to “mafias” in various industries such as petrol, rice, and cooking oil.
However, the president has also sought to assuage the public. On Aug. 29, Prabowo—accompanied by the defense minister, cabinet secretary, and head of intelligence—visited Affan’s grieving parents, whom he embraced and promised government support for a family that had lost its main breadwinner. The police and president also promised a thorough investigation of the seven officers in the car that struck Affan.
On Aug. 31—flanked by ministers and party leaders—Prabowo announced other concessions. Various parliamentary policies—including the generous housing allowances and the right to work from abroad—are to be revoked. He also promised a meeting between politicians and civil society to address grievances. And in cooperation with political parties, several unpopular politicians have been suspended from parliament.
The leaderlessness of the protests makes them hard to analyze. While relatively disciplined—and familiar to the authorities—student organizations and unions had a large presence in many protests, but crowds of ordinary Indonesians also joined ad hoc. Outside parliament on Friday night, many of the protesters seemed to be young, even teenagers.
That means that there is no single set of demands. Nearly all extant political parties have joined the government—offered ministerial positions by a president who has put a rhetorical premium on national unity. The largest party not to join the ruling coalition—the Indonesian Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which is the biggest party in the House of Representatives—has declined to declare itself officially opposed to the president. Party sources say that they fear former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo would benefit from a weakened Prabowo. Jokowi has a rancorous relationship with the PDI-P, of which he was formerly a member, and Gibran Rakabuming Raka—Jokowi’s son—is currently the vice president.
Speaking to protesters, a few different demands emerged. At an Aug. 29 protest dominated by well-organized students from some of the capital’s most prominent universities, Foreign Policy spoke to alumni who also attended the events. The demonstrators asked for anonymity.
“We would like to see acknowledgement that the system is deeply and systematically broken,” one declared, adding, “And that they have a clear plan for reform.” The protester and their friends emphasized the need for comprehensive political reform.
At a rowdier protest later that night, outside Indonesia’s parliament, Foreign Policy spoke with a different crowd. Young Indonesians, some school-age, were occupying a large toll road on which fires had been set—throwing objects and shooting fireworks toward the building’s gates. The aspirations here seemed more material, with the most common hope expressed being a reduction in pay for politicians as well as tax cuts.
Some have tried to synthesize the movement into a more systematic program. One popular post circulating online laid out 17 demands to be met within the week and eight others to be met within a year. These include an investigation into the death of Affan and police violence during protests, salary freezes for parliamentarians, soldiers deployed during riots to return to barracks, anti-corruption measures, tax reform, and increased salaries, plus job protection policies for workers.
Many Indonesians seem to be feeling the pinch economically—making spectacles such as lavish lawmaker salaries and the profusion of ministers drawing government salaries from Prabowo’s oversized coalition offensive to many.
Headline economic figures look robust, but there are signs of trouble under the hood. Indonesia’s economy officially grew by 5.12 percent in the second quarter this year, but many questioned the figure’s credibility. Worries about weak consumer sentiment and a shrinking middle class have dogged the economy since late last year. Trump’s tariffs may also be taking a bite, since despite striking a deal with Washington, Indonesia enjoys the highest effective tariff rate in the region at 24.5 percent, according to analysis by the Singapore-based Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation.
Household spending is under pressure, and there is widespread anxiety about apparent shrinkage of the middle class. Prabowo’s sweeping social programs appear to be misfiring. The rollout of a free school meals program has proceeded unevenly. And, to fund the program’s startling cost, the government has slashed spending in other areas including education, infrastructure, and transfers to local governments, which responded by raising local property taxes. This triggered protests in some regions last month.
Civil society activists and students are worried about a creeping authoritarian comeback. The growing role of the military in government and business in particular has raised worries about a return to the days of Suharto.
Many now fear that the limited concessions offered by the president will fail to calm crowds or address the root causes behind the protests.
“The problem is that the concessions are too little, too late, and did not address the root causes of the problem, which are corrupt behaviors of the officials, waste due to bloated cabinet and bureaucracy, budget wasted on expensive and yet ineffective programs, and fiscal imbalance that would necessitate major tax increases sooner or later,” Yohanes Sulaiman, a nonresident fellow the National Bureau of Asian Research, told Foreign Policy. “As a result, regardless of the outcome of these protests, the government will keep facing a fiscal crisis, higher taxes, and a very angry population in [the] long run.”