President Prabowo Subianto has once again turned to loyalists with military backgrounds to fill key leadership roles in the Finance Ministry’s revenue-generating directorates. His decision to appoint an active military general to head the customs office and an alumnus of military-style Taruna Nusantara (Tarnus) high school to lead the tax office has sparked concerns over the erosion of meritocracy and the growing influence of cronyism in public administration.

In his unending quest to find a political party to call home, former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s name has now been thrown into the mix of potential candidates to contest the upcoming race for the chairmanship of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI). The nascent party has no legislative seats, but it has a fair share of power within President Prabowo Subianto’s government.

Indonesia’s economy grew by just 4.87 percent in the first quarter of 2025, its weakest Q1 performance since 2022, despite a seasonal boost in consumer spending during Ramadan and Idul Fitri. The slower-than-expected growth casts early doubts on President Prabowo Subianto’s ambitious economic targets, including achieving 8 percent annual growth by 2029 and reaching high-income status by 2045.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has renewed its long-standing partnership with Indonesia following a high-profile visit by Bill Gates to Jakarta in early May. While the Foundation emphasized its commitment to improving public health and healthcare access in the country, one initiative in particular—trials for a novel tuberculosis (TB) vaccine—has attracted growing public skepticism and concern.

Following its failure to secure seats in the House of Representatives during the 2024 general elections, Indonesia’s oldest Islamic political party, the United Development Party (PPP), is now seeking new leadership in hopes of staging a political comeback. In an unprecedented move, the party is even considering figures outside its traditional Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) roots.

West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi has made headwinds across the nation after launching a controversial initiative to send delinquent youth to military bootcamps as part of a large-scale re-education effort in the region. Since the announcement of his plan early this month, around 270 “misbehaving” students have been sent to Indonesian Military (TNI) barracks in Bandung and Purwakarta.

The Indonesian government plans to cut off refined fuel imports from Singapore —its largest supplier, which currently accounts for approximately 54 percent of Indonesia’s total refined fuel needs. The move reflects a broader strategic shift in Indonesia’s energy import policy, aiming to cut costs and reposition the country within the evolving landscape of global trade, particularly in relation to the United States. However, concerns remain over whether the plan will truly deliver cost savings, given the higher logistics expenses involved, and whether Indonesia’s infrastructure is ready to support imports from more distant suppliers.

When the government completes rewriting the official national history, scheduled for August, do not expect too much change on topics that are too politically sensitive to be written in a more honest and objective way. The more recent history will likely be much trickier to write, and to read, for that matter, as many of the (bad) actors are still alive.

President Prabowo Subianto’s pledge to phase out Indonesia’s outsourcing system amid a wave of layoffs and rising unemployment has sparked mixed reactions. Announced during the May Day celebrations on May 1, 2025, the proposal was framed as a bold step to improve labor conditions. But critics warn it may prove to be an empty promise driven by political aspirations rather than grounded strategy.

Since taking office in October, President Prabowo Subianto has moved quickly to install key allies, many with military backgrounds, into top posts at state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Their appointments span a wide range of sectors from aviation and logistics to mining, prompting concerns over growing cronyism and the erosion of meritocratic principles in corporate governance of SOEs.

The Constitutional Court has taken another step in defense of freedom of expression from the draconian Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law. The court’s decision offers additional assurance of civil liberties following last year’s legislative amendments aimed at addressing the concerns over digital authoritarianism by the government, which was behind the passing of the legislation in the first place.

Since taking office President Prabowo Subianto has focused on uniting Indonesia’s political landscape by forming a broad coalition called Onward Indonesia, which includes nearly every major party. To secure their support, he has granted key roles in his government to coalition allies, ensuring they share influence. Notably, the Golkar Party, led by Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia, received eight cabinet positions, with half of those roles filled by ministers who also served under Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

President Prabowo Subianto joined a massive Labor Day rally in Jakarta on May 1, making some promises that went down well with the crowd. However, his appearance seemed to blunt their expressing more radical demands as well as criticisms against businesses and the government.

The World Bank has revised down its forecast for Indonesia’s economic growth in 2025 to 4.7 percent year-on-year (yoy), below the psychologically significant 5 percent threshold, from a previous estimate of 5.1 percent. The bank also downgraded Indonesia’s average growth projection for 2025–2027 to just 4.8 percent, a notable drop from the 5.1 percent average it projected in October 2024 for the 2024–2026 period. This downward revision raises serious questions about the feasibility of the Prabowo Subianto administration’s goal to achieve 8 percent annual GDP growth by the end of his term.

Mass organizations have been identified as an obstacle to the investment climate in the country, as many of them often engage in thuggery, demanding illegal levies in return for security rackets. While some of the groups have proven to violate the law, it looks difficult for the law enforcers to act against them, simply because of their connection to, and hence support from, political elites, if not the military or the police top brass. 

President Prabowo Subianto delivered a closed-door address to 1,500 state-owned enterprise (SOE) leaders at the Danantara Indonesia Town Hall Meeting on Apr. 28, held at the Jakarta Convention Center. The unexpected decision to exclude the press from the event has raised concerns about transparency, particularly given the public role of SOEs in shaping Indonesia’s economic trajectory.

The passing of Pope Francis on April 21 has struck the global community to its core. From the outset of his papacy, Francis made a difference. He was a man of many firsts: the first Jesuit pontiff, the first Latin American pope, and the first pope born outside of Europe since the 8th century. Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he chose the Latin name Francis for his pontificate in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century Italian friar who, in his words, was a man of poverty and peace “who loves and protects creation”.

A planned revision of the Financial Sector Development and Strengthening Law (P2SK) by Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR) may go beyond its original intent, potentially redrawing the central bank’s mandate in ways that could blur the line between fiscal and monetary policy, as well as reignite concerns about Bank Indonesia’s (BI) independence.

Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka is facing mounting pressure, mostly for underperformance, in the seven months since taking up the job. The latest sign of tension in his relationship with President Prabowo Subianto was when the latter asked former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to represent him at last week’s funeral ceremony of Pope Francis in the Vatican. This is a job normally reserved for the VP. There was no explanation for why Prabowo gave the assignment to Jokowi, Gibran’s father and the country’s president from 2014 to 2024.

Indonesia’s efforts to strengthen trade ties with the United States have hit an unexpected roadblock, centered on the country’s QR code-based payment system—Quick Response Indonesia Standard (QRIS). The U.S. government has classified QRIS as a trade barrier, arguing that it has curtailed the dominance of Visa and Mastercard in Indonesia’s payment ecosystem, where both companies had expanded prior to QRIS’s launch in 2019.

The arrest of a Jakarta district judge has sparked public outcry and spotlighted the long-standing decay of institutional trust in the judiciary. On April 11, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) apprehended South Jakarta District Court head Muhammad Arif Nuryanta on allegations that he had accepted Rp 60 billion (US$3.5 million) in bribes in exchange for a favorable ruling for three defendants in the 2022 graft case related to crude palm oil (CPO) export permits.

The influence of former president Joko ‘’Jokowi’’ Widodo on the government of his successor President Prabowo Subianto looks to remain intact, despite the former’s promise to stop creating an image of shadow leadership in the country.

South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (LGES) has officially withdrawn from a multibillion-dollar battery supply chain investment plan in Indonesia, casting uncertainty over the country’s ambitions to become a global electric vehicle (EV) hub. The decision came amid a sluggish domestic EV market in Indonesia, which has led the company to reassess its investment priorities and scale back on expansion plans, prompting Indonesian authorities to seek alternative partners to keep the strategic initiative on track.

Three months since its January 2025 rollout, the government’s free nutritious meal program has encountered many problems on the ground, from reports of food poisoning and small portions with questionable nutritional value to unpaid suppliers and workers, as well as allegations of nepotism in the way the program’s contracts are being parceled out.

President Prabowo Subianto has tasked Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati with leading the financing strategy for the ambitious Red and White Village Cooperative program, which now targets the creation of 80,000 cooperatives across Indonesia. The initiative carries an estimated cost of Rp 400 trillion (US$23.8 billion) and is expected to draw from a mix of public funding sources, including the state budget (APBN), regional budgets (APBD) and village funds (APBDes), even as its core concept and financial framework remain unclear.

The Indonesian stock market experienced a modest but meaningful recovery this week, buoyed by an announcement from United States President Donald Trump that the implementation of his import tariffs would be delayed for the next 90 days for most countries, excluding China, Mexico and Canada. This pause offered global markets a reprieve from an escalation in trade tensions, and Indonesia was no exception.

Indonesia and Qatar have launched a US$4 billion joint investment fund, co-managed by Indonesia’s Danantara investment agency and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), marking a major milestone in President Prabowo Subianto’s Middle East diplomacy. While the agreement signals strong international confidence in Indonesia’s economic prospects, it also raises mounting expectations for Danantara to provide liquidity for domestic projects despite lingering concerns over its financial capacity.