We Australians should pray that Jokowi wins. Jokowi, without a military background, needs to build a solid support base in the military to avoid coup attempts by Prabowo Subianto.

Duncan Graham is not exagerating about Prabowo Subianto's past conduct . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prabowo_Subianto#Role_in_1998_riots_and_the_Fall_of_Suharto spells out Subianto's failed coup attempt in 1998.

To paraphrase - when Suharto was falling in 1998 Subianto publicly urged Indonesian Muslims to join Subianto to fight "traitors to the nation". Subianto was willing "to drive all the Chinese out of the country even if that sets the economy back twenty or thirty years." Subianto stated "Chinese Catholics are trying to topple Suharto".

Less than three months after his appointment as head of Kostrad (a powerful army command) Subianto urged the commander of the Indonesian military, Wiranto, to let Subianto bring his troops into Jakarta to help "restore order." Thugs trained by Kopassus (Subianto's former command) were flown from Dili to Yogyakarta in chartered planes, and then on to Jakarta by train.

Subianto publicly urged Indonesians to join him to fight "traitors to the nation". On the morning of 14 May, 1998 Kopassus troops escorted the thugs from Sumatra into Jakarta - see what happened at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prabowo_Subianto#Role_in_1998_riots_and_the_Fall_of_Suharto .

If Prabowo Subianto doesn't actually win the Presidential Election on 9 July 2014 he has the record and connections to launch a coup against Jokowi.

At the end of the day, Indonesians can and will smell a rat, or a would be dictator!
And given what seems to be occurring on their northern borders, this still military weak but populous nation, needs all the mates it can muster!
And the best way to gain mates, is with genuine free trade agreements
United we stand, divided we fall!
Indonesia, may well need us in her corner, and with us in that corner, our own mates, and their military might!
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty

Indonesia is one of the most militarily weak countries around. Old and few jetfighters, a few small naval ships, 2 rusting submarines, lots of troops with few heavy weapons (no medium-heavy tanks) troops who are landlocked with little air or sea lift capacity.

Most of the Indonesia military is used for internal security (keeping an eye of dissident populations - Aceh, West Papua and on dissident troops) and running military economic enterprises (including people smuggler syndicates) on the side.

We need:

"Proud to be Indonesian"

to try to boast how strong Indonesia is.

Cheers

Pete

Jokowi comes from a humble background in small business. That makes him a down to earth & competent man/leader plus he is a likeable & sensible person as well.
All the very best to him.
If he wins, relations between the two countries will strenghten partly because there's no Rudd spying anymore.

@Individual
I'm with you in thinking Jolowi would be the better President, at least from an Australian perspective. But I would caution anyone thinking the spying is over just because Rudd left office.
Abbott just defended the "Five Eyes" (US England Canada Australia and NZ) system of international spying in a speech in Canada. Couple that with the recent announcement not to designate occupied Palestinian land as occupied, and I think the Anglo-Zionist mindset is well entrenched in our current government.
Eyes and ears on and in Indonesia will continue, no matter who is President up there.

I prefer Jokowi on account of the naked opportunism of Prabowo, whose vice-presidential running mate decided to curry favour from conservative Islamists like FPI. There is also stupid smears from Prabowo Islamist supporters that Jokowi was a closet Catholic who will be a puppet of US.

This is the most ridicilous, since it is actually Prabowo's brothers and sisters are all Christians (his dad was Muslim and his mom was Christian). While Jokowi almost never went overseas, Prabowo grew-up in Europe and was educated in elite military schools in US.

Prabowo's billionaire brother Hashim Djojohadikoesoemo (a Christian) has openly attacked his brother's new Islamist allies.

On the other hand, as Jakarta governor, Jokowi backed and defended one of his district chiefs, a Christian woman, when some stupid Islamists protested her position as chief of 90%-Muslim ward.

@Plantagenet:
What's with your obsession with military? The very well-equipped US army with help of all its stooges (including Australia) failed to defeat the Taliban, and now large parts of Iraq is under the rule of Al-Qaeda despite all those thousands of dead American soldiers (also dozens of dead Australian soldiers).

All those huge military spending in the West is kind of waste of money, in my opinion.

Hi Proud to be Indonesian

I'm in total agreement with what you've written.

With all Prabowo Subianto's family Christian connections it would seem he is a "crypto" (that is secret) Christian. He appears to use Islam as a form of political power projection.

His plans in 1998 to transport thugs into Jakarta to spread mayhem would have then been followed by him sending Kostrad and Kopassus troops into Jakarta to "restore order" - hence a coup. Similar to tactics intended for Dili in 1999.

Jokowi (especially if he had a firm deal with TNI) would get my vote. Concerns have probably been long term that Prabowo Subianto might be a coup threat if he didn't succeed politically. If Prabowo Subianto loses next month's election hopefully Jokowi can organise enough commercial incentives for Prabowo Subianto to keep Prabowo happy.

On the military - yes it is a personal obsession and way of seeing the world. Australia's military is too big for its small part of the region and too small to face genuine threats which might be China and may one day include India. Our military has the force structure to mainly back US ventures (Iraq, Afghanistan, Islamists in Africa next?).

As a ridiculous situation Australian and Indonesian Admirals both vainly hope that each of their navies can have 12 new submarines. Australian Admirals will say "well Indonesia plans 12" and visa versa. Its a racket too expensive for both our countries.

Regards

Pete
see http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/where-have-indonesian-kilo-submarines.html