As President Prabowo Subianto continues to feel pressure from the students-led “Dark Indonesia” protest movement over his austerity measures, he has received unexpected support from a major organisation representing the country’s ethnic Chinese minority.
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Formed after the fall of Suharto in 1998, the Indonesian Chinese Clans Social Association (PSMTI) represents hundreds of thousands of Chinese-Indonesians.
At the organisation’s Lunar New Year event in Surabaya on Sunday, its National Honorary Board Chairman Teguh Kinarto urged members to support Prabowo’s vision for a “Golden Indonesia,” a reference to his plan to transform the nation into a developed economy by 2045.
At the same event, real estate tycoon Paulus Totok Lusida, PSMTI East Java’s advisory board chairman, said despite the mounting economic challenges faced by Indonesia, “Chinese-Indonesians must be at the vanguard at keeping the nation’s peace”.
Made Supriatma, a political scientist and fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said Prabowo’s support among Chinese-Indonesians was an “interesting turn of events”, given the president’s involvement in the suppression of student protests in the 1998 riots.
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He said that former president Joko Widodo, who defeated Prabowo in the 2014 and 2019 elections, “garnered almost total support from Chinese-Indonesians then because of their past trauma with Prabowo over the 1998 allegations”.