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Published 17 January 2024

Key findings

1. The Indonesian election matters not only for Indonesia but also for the West. Depending on the winner, the election can have serious implications for Indonesia’s position on the geopolitical stage and in global markets.

2. Prabowo Subianto is the current favourite according to the polls. However, a Prabowo win in the first round is far from certain and it is likely that a second round run-off will be needed in June.

3. There is reason to treat Indonesian polls with some caution. Many Indonesian pollsters do not have a great track record and online polling bias may favour Prabowo.

1. What is at stake?

Kicking off the biggest global election year in history, the 2024 presidential and legislative elections will mark a major transition in Indonesian politics. After 10 years of rule by popular president Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”), the battle for his succession is hotly contested. Leaving the concurrent legislative elections aside, this note will focus on the presidential race, delving into the current landscape, potential scenarios, and the anticipated implications.

Three presidential hopefuls are in the race to replace Jokowi:

• Ganjar Pranowo, former Governor of Central Java, is the candidate favoured by Jokowi’s party, the centre-left PDI-P (The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle). The PDI-P is Indonesia’s largest party, and Ganjar’s candidacy is strengthened significantly by the endorsement of the party and its powerful chair and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri. Megawati is the daughter of Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno, and her support means that Ganjar can count on the PDI-P’s powerful party machinery to mobilise their large voter base. However, two things have hurt Ganjar’s chances. First, unlike Megawati, Jokowi has not endorsed his party’s candidate due to an increasing rift between him and the party leadership. Many assume he is quietly supporting Prabowo’s candidacy instead. This is notable, as Jokowi is immensely popular and his blessing is likely to be a significant strength for any candidate. Second, this has increased Ganjar’s dependence on Megawati and the party, which constrains his ability to shape his programme independently.

• Prabowo Subianto is a former army lieutenant general and the current Minister of Defence in Jokowi’s administration. He holds very close ties with large parts of the political establishment, including with the pre-1999 authoritarian Suharto regime as Suharto’s former son-in-law. His 2024 bid marks his third attempt at the presidency. He is supported by a mixture of right-leaning parties, including nationalist conservative Gerindra, centre-right Golkar, the centrist Democratic Party, and Islamic democratic party PAN. Prabowo has strongly attempted to present himself as the status quo candidate, vowing to continue the current administration’s legacy and even choosing Jokowi’s eldest son Gibran as his running mate. His opponents have criticised his dubious human rights record as general under Suharto, something which Prabowo’s campaign has tried to counter with an extensive social media charm offensive. The aim? Changing Prabowo’s image from a ruthless military leader to a cute and harmless grandpa.

• Anies Baswedan is Jokowi’s former Minister of Education and Culture as well as the Governor of Jakarta between 2017 and 2022. If Prabowo is the ‘status quo’ candidate, Anies has definitely attempted to present himself as the ‘change’ candidate. As a more progressive alternative to the Jokowi administration, he is supported by the centrist Islamic PKB party, centre-left NasDem, and conservative Islamic party Ummah. His campaign primarily targets the urban and educated middle-class segment of Indonesian society. However, he has faced two major obstacles. First, criticising Jokowi’s legacy is a challenge in and of itself in contemporary Indonesian politics. Jokowi’s approval ratings are still sky-high, and convincing the public of the need to divert from his popular policy programmes will not be easy. Second, accusations of courting hardline Islamist groups in the run-up to his election as Governor of Jakarta have hurt Anies’ public image, and the challenge his campaign faces is to make him more acceptable to moderate muslims.

Domestically, the policy programmes of the three candidates look relatively similar. However, there are two reasons why Western observers will be watching this race closely: foreign investment and geopolitics.

First, with regard to foreign investment policy, Prabowo’s campaign rhetoric has strongly featured ideas about Indonesian self-sufficiency and resource nationalism. He has publicly stated that he wants Indonesia to make their own cars, motorbikes, and electric vehicles as well as increase self-sufficiency in terms of water, food, and energy. In line with Jokowi’s current policies, however, it is very likely that Prabowo will continue the current administration’s policies on the Nusantara project (a $30 billion megaproject to move the capital of Indonesia from Jakarta to Nusantara in Borneo) and electric vehicles. Concerning the latter, Indonesia boasts massive mineral and mining resources, especially for highly demanded materials in EV batteries. Prabowo’s pro-business agenda is likely to combine the courting of foreign companies to open facilities in Indonesia while limiting the export of raw materials to be processed elsewhere.

While Ganjar also intends to proceed with the Nusantara project, he appears less open to new infrastructure projects than pro-business Prabowo. Instead, his focus would be on ensuring that existing infrastructure is utilised more effectively. Anies is the exception in this field, opposing the capital relocation and holding more sceptical views on foreign investment. Instead, he is likely to prioritise reducing income disparities and economic inequality over attracting new foreign investment. However, in the realm of energy investment specifically, Anies’s platform is especially ambitious to phase out coal and double down on renewables. He is likely to pursue more collaborations with companies in the West to help fulfil these ambitions.

Second, in the realm of foreign policy, both Ganjar and Prabowo are likely to continue Jokowi’s economics-driven foreign policy. Both candidates have signalled their intent to establish closer ties with China, the country’s largest trading partner, while also leveraging its diplomatic capabilities to engage with new trading partners such as the United Arab Emirates. Any rapprochement with China, however, will need to thread a fine line between trade and national security interests, especially with regard to China’s increasingly assertive presence in the North Natuna Sea and its ‘nine-dash line’ claims. By contrast, Anies has signalled his intent to pursue a more ‘values-driven foreign policy’, which is likely to include a more proactively collaborative approach with Western partners and a more sceptical stance towards China.

2. What is the state of the race?

Currently, Indonesian pollsters regard Prabowo Subianto as the strong favourite in the presidential race. After an early lead for Ganjar Pranowo in the first months of 2023, the two were virtually tied from April to September (see Figure 1). However, since October, Prabowo has substantially increased his lead while Ganjar has plummeted. There are different explanations for why this is, but it is likely that Jokowi’s distancing from Ganjar plays a large role. In turn, this has increased Ganjar’s reliance on Megawati, which has limited his ability to craft a public image separate from that of the PDI-P party.

Nevertheless, it should also be noted that Prabowo’s campaign has been effective so far. With Jokowi’s son as his running mate, many assume that Jokowi quietly supports Prabowo’s bid, something that significantly increases the appeal of his campaign. Furthermore, his support among young voters has improved in particular. This suggests that Prabowo’s social media campaigns mentioned above are bearing fruit, making gains in a demographic swing group that Ganjar also hoped to attract.

If we assume that these polls are reliable, there are three possible outcomes of the vote on February 14th. The first is an outright victory for Prabowo in the first round. According to Indonesian electoral law, a presidential candidate can be elected in the first round if they win at least 50% of the national vote and at least 20% of the vote in over half of Indonesia’s provinces. Current polling suggests that this is a real possibility. Half of all public polls published in December had Prabowo above 50% after adjusting for non-voters. Moreover, there are no signs to suggest that his vote would be so geographically concentrated that he would fail to meet the second criterion.

Should Prabowo fail to meet the 50% threshold, the second possible outcome would be a run-off election between Prabowo and Ganjar. If Ganjar would finish second in the first round, a second ballot would be held on 26 June 2024. Figure 2 illustrates the average polling trends for this second round match-up. Although the polls were a lot closer earlier in the race, current averages show Ganjar trailing by approximately 17 percentage points, at an average of 41.5% versus Prabowo’s 58.5%. This is a significant lead, although it is worth noting that there is reason to doubt the predictive power of second round polling in Indonesian elections. The third section will cover this point in greater detail.

Finally, the third outcome would be a run-off between Prabowo and Anies. In that case, Anies would have to beat Ganjar in the first round to finish second behind Prabowo. As illustrated by Figure 3, Prabowo is very likely to win this run-off according to the polls. He currently holds a lead of approximately 30 percentage points, suggesting that Anies would have to make up a lot more ground between the first and second round of the election than Ganjar in the second scenario.

3. What can polling tell us about the race?

The polls suggest that Prabowo is the strong favourite to become the next Indonesian president. In fact, even if he fails to win the presidency in the first round, it appears that he is almost guaranteed to win any second round run-off. That brings us to the next question: can we trust the polls?

We think there are a few reasons for caution when it comes to Indonesian election polling. First, from a practical standpoint, even if the polls are relatively accurate, it would not come as a surprise if Prabowo did not reach 50% of the vote in the first round. This would trigger a run-off between Prabowo and his closest competitor which would not be held until June 26th. The long timespan between the first and second rounds - over four months - is an unusual facet of the Indonesian electoral system. A lot can happen in four months, and there is plenty of time for second round polling to shift and show a tighter race.

The second reason for polling scepticism is the historical track record of Indonesian pollsters. The 2019 electoral cycle was the first year with multiple electoral forecasts from different Indonesian pollsters, and their results were mixed. Figure 4 illustrates the final predictions of the three most regular Indonesian pollsters compared to the final results of the electoral race between Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto. Although all three correctly predicted a Widodo victory, they overpredicted the gap between the two candidates by between 6.8 and 10.2 percentage points. Combine this with the fact that pollsters are now polling a more complicated race with three candidates, and the reasons behind our cautious approach towards the Indonesian polls should be clear.

Finally, it is worth noting that, if the polls are biased one way or the other, it is likely that this bias is creating overly positive estimates for Prabowo. Several observers have noted that Prabowo’s polling gains are likely to be at least partially driven by his effective social media campaigns and an increase in support among young voters. Our own polling in Indonesia supports this view. We found that support for Prabowo among under 34s was approximately 5 percentage points higher than his national average (43.9% vs 38.8%). However, given that most Indonesian pollsters use online polling, it is likely that the young people filling up these polls are also those who are more likely to be active on social media and be impacted by Prabowo’s online campaigning. If this is true, Prabowo’s support among young people may be less strong than the polls suggest.

In summary, while we also regard Prabowo as the favourite in the race, there is some evidence to suggest that his lead may turn out to be slightly smaller than the polls suggest. This increases the likelihood of a second round run-off and might mean that we have to wait another five months before we know the identity of Indonesia’s next president.

We are also keeping an eye on:

• US Primaries - With another presidential election year coming up, primary season has officially started. Kicked off by the Iowa caucus on January 15th, Trump has taken an early lead in the Republican primaries. With DeSantis beating Haley to second place, the key question is whether either of them can still position themselves as a viable alternative to Trump?

• European Parliament elections - After a tumultuous year in European politics, citizens of all 27 EU member states will head to the polls to elect their European representatives. Current polling shows a weakening lead for the EPP and increasing strength of the flanks of the Parliament. If that turns out to be true, coalition building will become increasingly complicated in the EP’s next term. Voting 6-9 June 2024.

• Pakistani general election - Amid political polarisation and divided institutions, voters in Pakistan will head to the polls to elect a new National Assembly. Although jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan will not stand, it is currently unclear who will fill the void that he left in Pakistani politics. Voting on 8 February 2024.