Prabowo and the Influence of Foreign Lobbyists

AT the end of the documentary How to Become a Tyrant, Peter Dinklage offers a tip on how not to be crushed by autocratic power: social cohesion. From all the autocrats portrayed in the film, one lesson emerges clearly, that is authoritarianism thrives in societies riddled with mutual suspicion.

That suspicion is first engineered by those in power through the creation of a common enemy. For autocrats, such an “enemy” is essential so that the public believes in—and accepts—power as an unquestioned savior. People are compelled to see the ruler as coming to rescue them from the threat posed by that enemy.

In Iraq, after consolidating power, Saddam Hussein accused senior members of the Baath Party of plotting to overthrow him. He ordered their execution, claiming they endangered stability. In Libya, Muammar Qadhafi accused Italian and Asian businesspeople of sabotaging the national economy and expelled them back to their home countries.

In short, autocratic rulers arrive with grand rhetoric about nationalism, protectionism, and how to become a great nation in the future. After inventing a common enemy, they anesthetize the public with populism. When that marriage succeeds, repressive power will no longer face obstacles.

Political thinkers such as Carl Schmitt formulated this logic explicitly. In The Concept of the Political (1932), he argued that human beings fundamentally live to manage conflict. Politics, therefore, begins by distinguishing friend from foe. Even in democracies, political enemies are managed through opposition and elections, regulated by impartial law.

So, for Carl Schmitt, both autocrats and democrats create common enemies as a means of legitimizing power. For rulers, what matters is that their words are heeded. Democratic quarrels are ineffective for authorities seeking grand ambitions—unless the public resembles the citizens of Aristotle’s imagined polis: intelligent, conscious, and rhetorically skilled. In developing countries, such an ideal public is hard to expect.

Strong leaders, therefore, all have enemies of their own making. Putin, Jinping, Jong-un, and Erdoğan in Russia, China, North Korea, and Turkey cast “the West” as their adversary. They frame this amorphous entity as a common enemy obstructing their national aspirations. In Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto repeatedly invokes “foreign stooges” as forces hampering his efforts to transform the country into an “Asian tiger.”

Prabowo’s target is the critics of his policies. From his vantage point, his irritation with criticism is understandable. He believes his programs are designed to usher Indonesia into a golden age: free nutritious meals, people’s schools, Red-and-White cooperatives, food self-sufficiency, and downstream industrialization of natural resources. Anyone who questions his approach, he suggests, serves interests that do not wish to see Indonesia advance.

At first glance, the argument seems plausible. But a closer look reveals the problem lies in the details. Many of Prabowo’s programs bypass principles of good governance: no competitive tenders, no rigorous studies, little transparency, and minimal oversight. Democratic safeguards in policymaking are brushed aside. Without accountability, such projects function more easily in authoritarian systems. When implemented in a democracy like Indonesia, criticism is inevitable.

For autocrats, the common enemy often serves merely as a gimmick. In practice, they remain cozy with those they publicly brand as adversaries. This week’s cover story reveals how Prabowo is surrounded by foreign lobbyists who influence his policymaking, even proposing projects that draw financial gain from public funds.

Around 1945, photographer John Florea captured an image that would later become iconic: Sutan Sjahrir, Sukarno, and Mohammad Hatta seated together on a single rattan chair. Sjahrir and Hatta served as trusted confidants to Sukarno, the nation’s first president. They were intellectuals—debate partners and sparring companions shaping the future of a young republic. Today, those advisers are foreign actors seeking economic and political gain.

Sukarno’s words at the commemoration of Heroes Day on November 10, 1961, resonate anew: “My struggle was easier because it was against colonialists. Yours will be more difficult because it is against your own people.”