JAKARTA – “Sukarno [Indonesia’s first president and anti-colonial revolutionary] struggled for 30 years. I can spend one or two years in jail,” said Hasto Kristiyanto, secretary general of the Indonesia Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), the country’s largest political party, in an exclusive interview with Asia Times.
Just five days later, Hasto’s resolve was put to the test when he was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice over a bribery case pursued by Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
In the February 15 interview, given shortly before his arrest, Hasto struck a defiant tone. “I am completely innocent,” he said. “This is just a political issue because of my criticism of Jokowi [Indonesia’s former president’s nickname] and the damage he has done to Indonesian democracy.”
Hasto’s arrest has sent shockwaves across Indonesia’s politics, raising concerns of a new slide toward authoritarianism in a nation still haunted by decades of heavy-handed rule.
The move is a sharp escalation in the complex three-way struggle between President Prabowo Subianto, former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and ex-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who leads the PDI-P and is the daughter of independence hero Sukarno.
Hasto is widely seen as Megawati’s right-hand man. The PDI-P is currently the only party represented in the national parliament not to join Prabowo’s umbrella coalition.
Prabowo has repeatedly expressed his wish for PDI-P to join his government as part of his plans to unify the nation. However, Widodo, a two-term president under PDI-P who eventually fell out with Megawati, remains a key stumbling block.
As president, Widodo proved key in Prabowo’s election win. Widodo’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 37, serves as Prabowo’s vice president, an arrangement that only became possible after a controversial Constitutional Court ruling that lowered age limits for vice presidents. At the time, the court was led by Widodo’s brother-in-law.
Prabowo has also appointed known Widodo allies to key government positions. This includes the chairmanship of the KPK, which is now leading Hasto’s prosecution.
Widodo’s relationship with the PDI-P and Megawati imploded when he chose to back Prabowo over the PDI-P’s preferred candidate, Governor of Central Java Ganjar Pranowo, for the presidency. Widodo had initially signaled he would back Pranowo in line with Megawati’s wishes.
The now-jailed Hasto has emerged as a leading Widodo critic. “He wants to still be president,” Hasto told Asia Times before his arrest, referring to Widodo. “So he wanted that the new president could be controlled by [him].”
Pulling out a summary of his recently completed university dissertation on Indonesia’s political system, Hasto read out long passages critical of Widodo during the interview.
It is this sort of criticism Hasto claims that landed him in legal trouble. How did he plan to fight back? “We will combine the political process and the legal process,” he said, without elaborating on tactics.
On the legal front, Hasto stands accused of orchestrating a 2019 attempt to bribe a former commissioner of Indonesia’s General Election Commission to secure a PDI-P candidate’s place in parliament. To date, three, including an aid of Hasto, have been convicted in connection with the corruption crime.
When the investigation was announced in 2020, many expected Hasto to be ensnared too. There is now an investigation into whether the former chair of the KPK, then an ally of Megawati’s, intervened improperly to protect him.
When asked about this, Hasto brushed off the charges and focused instead on what he said were procedural flaws in the case against him, and claims by witnesses they had been offered bribes and faced intimidation to induce them to testify against Hasto.
On February 15, Hasto was preparing to relaunch his pre-trial appeal to have the charge dismissed after a judge denied his previous attempt to kill the case on procedural grounds.
He also invoked the PDI-P’s history, including how it had won a key legal case in 1996 under the Suharto dictatorship by bombarding courts across the country with hundreds of appeals until one judge ruled in their favor. “As [Megawati] said then, if we can find just one judge that has moral force, we can win.”
Ultimately, though, the political may be the key component in his fight. While Megawati has criticized Widodo at times, she has until now refrained from attacking Prabowo, a former special forces soldier accused of rights abuses. Rumors of a Megawati-Prabowo meeting as a prelude to reaching a political understanding have swirled in Jakarta.
“They will meet when it is the right moment,” Hasto told Asia Times before his arrest, suggesting a time in April after the end of Ramadan.
However, Hasto revealed the two leaders had already spoken on various occasions on the phone in conversations where Megawati apparently expressed to Prabowo the need for checks and balances in Indonesian democracy.
“Among the two leaders there is already a clear understanding of each other’s situation,” Hasto added. “There is no handicap for them to meet – they have a good history together.” Indeed, in 2009, Prabowo ran unsuccessfully as Megawati’s vice presidential nominee under his Gerindra party banner.
Hasto denied Megawati has raised his case with Prabowo, but acknowledged the state of their relations would inevitably have a bearing on his legal fate. “Everything is connected,” he said.
Could Megawati lead her party to join Prabowo’s cabinet? While saying Megawati is for now steadfast in her decision to stay in the opposition, Hasto did not categorically rule out the possibility.
“The problem there is coming from Gibran,” said Hasto, referring to the vice president and son of Widodo. “How can we join the cabinet when Gibran is a symbol of breaking constitutional law?”
Whether this quasi-amicable position toward Prabowo holds since Hasto’s arrest is unclear. Speaking off the record, PDI-P members admit to being startled by the recent turn of events, having expected instead a political deal.
According to one well-placed source, serious preparations for action should Hasto actually face jail time began not in December when the investigation was announced, but only last week as it became apparent that his pre-trial hearing to dismiss the case against him was going poorly.
Indeed, with Hasto’s arrest, the PDI-P appears to be digging in and taking a harder line. The party has declared Hasto will remain secretary-general even while in detention, a move that could stymie the power of factions within the party more inclined to accommodation with Prabowo’s government and by association with Widodo.
The party also moved to rebuke Prabowo. All PDI-P members holding elected local office withdrew their attendance from a one-week doctrinal retreat that Prabowo had made obligatory for all recently elected local politicians.
Should the relationship deteriorate further, the PDI-P could find itself under serious pressure. Three other prominent PDI-P figures – a former minister, a former governor of Jakarta and the mayor of Semarang – are all facing high-profile KPK investigations.
Prabowo himself remains extremely popular, with a recent poll putting his approval rating at around 80%. This week saw scattered student protests over radical revisions to the budget by his administration, but they have yet to spread to the wider public.
A plunge back into the politically persecuted opposition would take the PDI-P back to its roots. The party formed in 1996 as Megawati began to rally opposition to then-President Suharto’s dictatorship. When the Asian financial crisis toppled Suharto in 1998, the PDI-P emerged on the vanguard of the democratic opposition.
“They have to be afraid of me, of [Megawati], of the PDI-P because of our history.” Soon, Indonesia will see if this is indeed the case.
