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resh from his inauguration, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto – a former general accused of kidnapping pro-democracy activists during the Suharto era – had his cabinet ministers marching in formation, dressed in military fatigues at a three-day boot camp that democracy watchers believed would set the tone for what was to come.
Six months later, this martial display has proven more than symbolic.
On March 20, Indonesia’s parliament rushed through amendments to the military law that expand the armed forces’ role in civilian governance and add new domains to the armed forces’ “non-war operations.”
Prabowo had attempted to rebuff concerns that the amendments would revive the dwifungsi (dual function) doctrine imposed under former president and dictator Suharto’s regime, where the military was given broad powers in both defense and civilian governance, leading to large-scale rights abuses.
But for Indonesians who endured the Suharto dictatorship, which Prabowo once served, the expanding military footprint in civilian spaces is already stirring deep fears of losing the hard-won democratic reforms the country put in place after 1998.
Indonesians have little reason to view these amendments as benign. It was Prabowo’s predecessor, former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who laid the groundwork for normalizing the military’s involvement in civilian affairs. “In reality, the law is needed to legalize what has been happening since at least 10 years ago,” said Bivitri Susanti, lecturer at the Indonesia Jentera School of Law, at a webinar organized by the Asia Democracy Network on April 8.
Troubling continuity
By that, Susanti meant how Prabowo’s predecessor, Jokowi, made moves to gradually normalize military presence in civilian spaces during his tenure. In his two consecutive terms in office (2014 to 2024), Jokowi slowly repositioned the military back into roles it had been stripped of after Suharto’s ouster. This includes the appointment of dozens of active and retired military officers to top civilian posts and increasingly relied on the armed forces for public functions, including pandemic response and infrastructure projects.
By 2023, approximately 2,500 active military officers were already occupying civilian posts. This paved the way for Prabowo, former son-in-law of Suharto, to railroad laws that would cement the military’s expanding influence in Indonesia.
The revised military law signed last month permits active-duty officers to serve in 14 civilian institutions, up from ten previously, including disaster management and counter terrorism. It also adds two new categories to the military’s “non-war operations”: cyber defense and protection of citizens and national interests abroad.
Critics say the amendments mirror Suharto’s “dwifungsi” doctrine, which gave the military sweeping power over civilian affairs and helped entrench authoritarian rule.
Daniel Awigra, executive director of Human Rights Working Group, warns that the formal legitimization of this trend through law poses a fundamental threat to democratic expression.
“It really brings our trauma and experience back when there is almost no room for discussion or debate,” Awigra said during the ADN webinar, “The question is, how can we discuss or debate if there is a gun or weapon on the table?”
Even before the law’s passage, Prabowo had already tapped active-duty officers for key posts, including those at the national food agency and transportation ministry. Analysts say the revised military law lends formal cover to what was already happening on the ground, that is, the systematic militarization of Indonesia’s bureaucracy.
“For us in Indonesia, [within] civil society, we don’t see it as a new thing, because the New Order or militarization is still there, basically. It has never disappeared … It is always there,” Awigra said. “It was informally happening under Joko Widodo, and now legalized by Prabowo.”
For Awigra and other rights advocates, the contentious law harks back to a dark past in Indonesia’s history, the 32-year (1966-1998) authoritarian rule of Suharto, otherwise dubbed the New Order.
The law’s passage wasn’t just alarming for its content but also for the haste with which it was passed by Indonesia’s parliament, with minimal public consultation – a “foul legislative process,” said Susanti.
Key deliberations on the bill transpired behind closed doors just days before the law’s ratification. Activists condemned the secretive discussions held at a luxury hotel amid national austerity measures. The Civil Society Coalition for Security Sector Reform labeled the process a “betrayal of the principles of justice and democracy.”
Specter of Suharto’s dual function doctrine
Asia is dotted with countries where militaries hold sway over civilian governments – and Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, is now showing signs of falling back in line. Indonesia was often held up as a success story in the wave of democracy that swept across Southeast Asia in the late 1990s, when Suharto’s three-decade rule collapsed under the combined weight of student-led mass protests and economic crisis.
In the years that followed, the country undertook sweeping reforms to curb the military’s political role, including the passage of Law No. 34/2004 or the TNI Law that Prabowo’s regime has just revised.
The “dwifungsi” or dual function doctrine – Suharto’s policy that gave the military both defense and sociopolitical functions – had enabled widespread surveillance, intimidation, and control of everything from universities to labor unions. Officers held positions in state-run companies, ministries, and even religious bodies. Dissent was often met with enforced disappearances and torture.
“During the Suharto era, he was backed really mainly by the military,” Susanti said. “We haven’t been able to deconstruct militarism as habitus … In the political context, it’s something that we do every day, together with the culture of violence and impunity.”
For Susanti, the creeping influence of the military in Indonesia’s governance “widens the road to authoritarianism” and threatens to roll back its democratic progress since the fall of Suharto, Susanti said. Citing the Economist Group’s Democracy Index 2024 – where Indonesia continues to be tagged as a “flawed democracy” – she said the country’s assigned score could plunge even further.
“Indonesian democracy is really going down, going toward a hybrid regime. When we reach six [on the scale], then we will go to a hybrid regime. And after that, we will go to an authoritarian regime,” Susanti said.
On the index’s 10-point scale, countries scoring six to five are classified as “hybrid regimes” – political systems marked by electoral irregularities, widespread corruption and deteriorating rule of law.
Sustaining the pushback
Since the passage of the controversial amendments to the TNI Law, civil society has mounted nationwide protests. A broad coalition of 229 civil society organizations – some based outside Indonesia – also expressed opposition to the amended law in a joint statement. Law students from the Padjadjaran University (Unpad) have also challenged the amendments before the constitutional court.
“What we still have, what Indonesian society still has until now, is to some extent, the freedom of expression to talk like this, to organize protests,” Susanti added. “But with this new military law, I’m afraid it’s really shrinking.”
That concern appears well-founded.
When members of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) attempted to disrupt a closed-door meeting by the House of Representatives Commission I Working Committee on the revised military law at a Jakarta hotel in March, security guards filed police reports against them for allegedly disturbing public order. U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders Mary Lawlor publicly expressed concern over the harassment and urged authorities to ensure that rights defenders could voice dissent freely.
Such a scenario doesn’t augur well for a country that once lived through decades of dictatorship, one of whose architects is now in power after two failed runs for the presidency, and despite his sordid human rights record.
That he’s steering the country back into an era akin to Suharto’s New Order may not be farfetched in the minds of concerned sectors like human rights advocates.
“We are afraid that [the law] is part of opening the gate [to] many other agendas. [There’s the] fear of going back to our previous New Order regime,” Awigra warned. ◉
Cristina Chi is a Filipino journalist based in Manila who writes about education, legislature, and human rights.
