This warlord warrior is the man who loads the gun for others, and his never surrender is for them, not the coward that ran, when last called to account for war crimes!
Attack who? Us?
How can decent Indonesians be so gullible, and or writers like this Author see anything at all palatable or appealing in this gutless poser!
What Indonesia needs is a real strongman and an economic literate, like the winner!
And one with a proud record of already facing and defeating corruption.
That's the sort of quiet indefatigable courage Indonesia needs now!
Not the ebullient bully boy Sabre rattling of a former runaway General/puppet in the hands of the rich and powerful who back him, and would rule through him!?
Corruption fighter personified is hardly a weak man, but rather an iron hand, albeit one held inside a velvet glove! So what if he sold furniture?
[What did the General do before he joined the military? Swill pigs?]
No wonder so many of the rich and powerful, want to see the back of him!
And the former furniture salesman (man of the people) should stay, if only to say to the world.
Indonesian elections will be decided by the people, not the rich and powerful, or corrupt war criminals/power hungry, sabre rattling psychopaths, only posing as reasonable people, who are actually even capable of putting ordinary Indonesians and Indonesia first!?
Rhrosty.

Is it not axiomatic that Indonesia cannot exist without its Javanese generals running the place?

And anyway Indonesian-Australian relations have been way too unexciting since those boats (in theory) were stopped. The Indon-Aus political rift triggered by the Guardian-Snowden regurgitations are now also a faint pong.

All this is a bit of a Joko if not so serious.

So where does this leave the Jocks and Bimbos of Bali?

Pete

This is an excellent article that anticipates possible future problems with ex-General Prabowo Subianto and the interests-people around him.

If President elect Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is appearing to be weak national leadership material then this (as the author suggests) may present a power vacuum that Prabowo Subianto could increasingly easily and plausibly fill.

The Indonesian political process since 1949 is not so stable or established as to rule out extra-legal tactics (mob and/or military force and bribe money) that Prabowo Subianto could utilise to take over.

Joko Widodo (Jokowi) needs to secure extensive and widely recognised military and financial backing to claim and maintain his position and keep Indonesia stable.

Thanks for your comments. For an update see: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/even-north-korea-doesnt-happen-prabowo-day-court/
There doesn't seem to be video available, though the former general was on TV news last night giving a forceful performance that should have dissenting judges quaking if the majority agree to his reasoning and reverse the election result. One even had the temerity to point out his spelling errors.

Hi Duncan Graham

Thanks for your article and the Jakarta Globe update http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/even-north-korea-doesnt-happen-prabowo-day-court/

The Suharto martial spirit has clearly not escaped Prabowo Subianto. In the Jakarta Globe update “We are hurt by the violations and injustice carried out by the election organizer,”

It looks like Prabowo Subianto is already using the Royal "we" as befits a Head of State born to rule.

With a modest tone..."Prabowo told the court to conduct revotes... He also claimed that voters were intimidated..." Though not yet intimidated be him or his minders in those particular cases :)

Here's a Youtube (in Bahasa) http://youtu.be/wTaiVseP86I of Prabowo Subianto in Court today. He becomes very insistent from 1 minute 40 seconds onwards.

A dramatic news story is http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/08/07/lawsuit-errors-vex-mk-justices.html .

All this should be getting more coverage in the Australian press than Gaza, at least.

Regards

Pete

Prabowo can rant all he can like a sore loser making proposterous Homer Simpson-like statements, but fewer and fewer people in Indonesia are taking him seriously as his statements became more and more erratic and pitable.

I see little chance of him succeeding in his appeal to Constitutional Court, due to his very weak and amateurish 'arguments' (all his appeal documents are uploaded online in the Constitutional Court website). Recent survey shows 93% of Indonesians believe there was a free and fair elections and just want the whole process to be completed ASAP.

Some of his political allies are still following his erratic moves due to his monetary largesse, since he paid well for loyalty. They will suck him as dry as possible, but they won't do anything stupid that would cause severe bite-back for them. President SBY, the military, Election Commission (KPU), and Constitutional Court (MK) have shown their impartiality out of fear of pro-Jokowi public anger. They all have congratulated Jokowi as president-elect.

Basically, nobody want to sacrifice themselves for Prabowo.

The fact that this murderous baboon remains unhung and enjoying the support of half the Indo voters means Indonesia remains an enemy of liberty and therefore an enemy of the people of Australia. Why no arraignment for the murder of thousands of East Timorese (who risked their lives for our soldiers in the war against the Jap aggressors with whom the likes of Prabowo were collaborating)? Why are we not encouraging the resistance of the brave people of West Papua rather than shying away from them in embarrassed subservience to the Indos? Why has no attempt been made to lay charges over the murder of our five journalists? Governments of both the Tweedledum (Gareth Evans, Bob Carr) and Tweedledee (Alexander Downer, Tony Abbott) parties have kow-towed to Jakarta. One of the few pollies to speak up consistently for decency against Indonesia was Michael Hodgman of Tasmania.

@EmperorJulian:

I guess that's because Australian politicians still have healthy mind and don't think like a baboon?

Combined might of Western powers could not defeat the Taleban or prevent Iraq from falling under extremist ISIS, now you want little Australia to make war with Indonesia, a next-door neighbour which is the fourth most populous country in the world and 10th largest economy? This is 2014, not 1814.

Even George W Bush was not that stupid, he seek to make friends with Indonesia, guided by the arch-NeoCon Paul Wolfowitz who loved Indonesia. Current US president Obama is even more fond of Indonesia where he lived as a child, as he said during his 2010 Jakarta visit, "Indonesia is part of me".

Time for you to smell the coffee and wake-up from your hubristic fantasy of Australian 'superpower' abilities.

Who said anything about going to war with Indonesia?

Opposing in international fora its claims to the right to suppress democracy in its colonies is no more going to war than refusing to treat as "de jure" China's claims to the right to suppress the self-determination of ITS colonies (Tibet, East Turkestan) or its ambition to make a colony of Taiwan. For years we opposed the USSR's treatment of its captive nations without going to war with it. Indonesia is a country that harbours war criminals, and Australia hasn't even had the sand to take the murder by them of its own citizens to The Hague.

Or is Proud to be Indonesian's reference to war suggesting that if we took a principled international stance on these issues Indonesia would attack us militarily?

Hi Proud to be Indonesian

I apologise on behalf of all Australians and, in fact, all woman and mankind for EmperorJulian Assange's more extravagant rantings.

That EmperorJulian was actually hired by ex-General Prabowo Subianto to ruin a perfectly civil thread concerning Joko Widodo's imminent victory is more than just a rumour.

Regards

Pete

Plantagenet: Try identifying the "extravagant rantings" and stating what makes each of them, or even any of them, them extravagant rantings. No can do? Thought not.

@EmperorJulian:

LOL, so in your opinion China, Russia, and Indonesia should submit their internal issues to the will of Australians? LOL, good luck on that piece of parallel universe fantasy.

In the meantime, we Indonesians would like to take a principled international stance that colonialist white illegal immigrants should return all Australia back to its rightful owners, the Aborigines. All the stolen wealth made by the white colonialists should be returned to the Aborigines, and any white illegal immigrants wishing to remain in Australia should only be allowed to do so after applying and obtaining permission from honorable Aborigines. Only the Aborigines have the right to determine who can enter Australia.

If Joko win's this next and final? stage today will Subianto be organising coup?

Indonesia's Constitutional Court is expected to decide today if the election of Joko Widodo as the country's next president is valid, after the losing contestant lodged a legal challenge. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-21/indonesian-court-set-to-decide-election-validity/5685836

Pete

@Plantagenet:

The Constitutional Court threw-out Prabowo's lawsuit against the elections today. Looking at the 'lawsuit' documents of Prabowo uploaded fully into the Constitutional Court's website, as well as following the court sessions aired live on TV, it is clear Prabowo's legal team made very poor and amateurish case. One of their witnesses could only quote supposed election cheating which he said he read out of a newspaper, while some of the legal documents blamed Prabowo's own team for attempted fraud.

Given today Prabowo can only raise around 1000-2000 paid crowds which were easily dispersed by police with a few tear gas canisters, obviously he does not have the power to launch military coup, given he neither has much influence over the military and the police.

Best he can do is to keep paying his political allies in parliament to annoy Jokowi administration.

Hi Proud to be Indonesian

Yes it seems Prabowo Subianto has been unsuccessful.

Where Duncan Graham says the following in his article should give pause for thought:

"[Joko] could grow into the job but so far his speeches have been embarrassingly uninspiring. As the Plan B candidate selected when his sponsor Megawati Soekarnoputri was persuaded not to stand, Jokowi is looking more and more like the Accidental President."

My main concern now is that Joko might lose popularity, creating a power vacuum that Prabowo Subianto would seek to fill.

Cheers

Pete

Well, Joko Widodo has had track record of improving his hometown of Surakarta when he was mayor from 2005-2012, as indicated by his mayoral re-election in 2010 with 85% of the votes.

In Jakarta, in the past two years his administration had actually started construction of MRT system which had never moved from planning stage since 1980s. He also has launched free education and free healthcare system using the KJP (Smart Jakarta Card) and KJS (Healthy Jakarta Card).

In terms of being a doer, Jokowi seems to be a better bet compared with Prabowo who has never actually held any government administrative office. Prabowo's poor management skills, unstable personality, and total lack of touch with reality was displayed for all Indonesians to see with his erratic responses and out-of-touch calls for 'war against Election Commission' after the presidential elections. That is the mental image Prabowo has implanted on the mind of Indonesian people in the past 1.5 months or so.

A recent survey suggested that if a re-vote was actually held, Jokowi will win with 75% of the votes which means around 50% of Indonesian voters who voted for Prabowo on July 9 has changed their mind about him after seeing the abovementioned erratic reactions.

Thanks Proud to be Indonesian

I've been almost totally ignorant about Jokowi though more knowledgable than most of my countrymen.

The Abbott government has distracted Australians away from chronic budget-Clive Palmer domestic governance problems with a news cycle of Ukraine-MH17 and Iraq-ISIL-Terrosism.

There's been virtually no public interest in the Indonesian Election as the few OLO articles (all by Duncan Graham) reflects.

Jokowi's record of achievements (that you've pointed to) shows a lot of promise for Indonesia.

Regards

Pete

@Plantagenet:

Good for you to have interest in Indonesian developments.

A conclusive statement on this episode is that Indonesian people at large fully support the democratic system which was implemented by the will of the people themselves back in 1998, to ensure peaceful transfer of power after rather bloody and violent downfall of two dictatorial regimes which was in power in the previous 50 years.

Also it can be said that the presidential election system which is in place is proven to be in good working order.