Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo
Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo is the chairman and a founder of the Gerindra Party. Gerindra is the common name for the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Partai Gerakan Indonesia Raya). He helped establish the Gerindra Party in 2008 and currently serves as its chairman. Prior to his involvement with Gerindra, Prabowo was affiliated with the Golkar party from 2004 to 2008. He was declared president-elect of Indonesia following the February 2024 election.
After graduating from the military academy in 1974, he served in the army for 28 years. He participated in a military mission to East Timor in 1976 to suppress the separatist movement there. However, with Suharto gone, his fortunes quickly declined. He was exposed as having organised the kidnapping of anti-Suharto activists early in 1998, and was finally dismissed from the armed forces in August 1998 after an internal inquiry.
Prabowo was briefly married to Siti Hidayati Hariyadi, known as "Titik" Suharto, the second daughter of former dictator Suharto. The country's second president, Suharto held power for 31 years until his resignation in 1998. They were divorced in 1998, shortly after her father's regime was overthrown. He has his only son, Rajuu Hideprasetyo Gojohadikosumo, nicknamed "Dedet", a renowned fashion designer based in Paris whose works have featured in international fashion shows. Prabowo spent most of his childhood abroad, due to his father's positions opposing the rule of Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia after its independence. Therefore, Prabowo is fluent in French, German, English, and Dutch.
Due to his closeness to power throughout his military career, he entered politics in 2004 to achieve his dream of becoming president of the country. Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikosumo co-founded the Gerindra Party in 2008, and has headed it since 2014. He failed in two attempts to reach the presidency in the 2014 and 2019 elections, and ran in his third attempt in the 2024 presidential elections within a coalition of 8 parties.
This individual was banned from entering the United States for many years due to allegations of human rights violations, including the abduction and torture of pro-democracy activists during the 1998 ouster of his then father-in-law, President Suharto. The Trump administration did grant Prabowo Subianto, who was then Indonesia’s defense minister in 2020, and invited them — invited him to the U.S. because of concerns that Jakarta may be veering too close to Beijing.
Prabowo Subianto is a good public speaker, making points forcefully and intelligently. He also has a common touch, working crowds of farmers and the urban poor with some ease (Prabowo served as head of a national farmer's organization for several years). Aside from his relative effectiveness on the stump, Prabowo is a wealthy businessman linked to a family that is rich. On the downside for Prabowo has been his poor human rights record while in the military, and a reputation for erratic behavior and anger management problems.
Prabowo's influential family had long-standing political standing. Prabowo was born on 17 October 1951 in Jakarta, the third of 4 siblings (two sons and two daughters), the son of noted economist (and dissident politician) Professor Sumitro Djojohadikusumo (1917-2001), His father was a prominent New Order-era economist and a minister during Sukarno and Suharto presidencies. Soimitru Gogohadikosumo, was a prominent economist and politician, who held several ministerial positions under Presidents Ahmed Soekarno and Mohamed Suharto. He served as Minister of Trade and Industry for the period (1950-1951), Minister of Finance for the periods (1952-1953) and (1955-1956), Minister of Commerce for the period (1968-1973), and Minister of Research for the period (1973-1978).
His father, as well as being considered one of the architects of the Indonesian economy as a minister in a number of cabinets under President Sukarno was also involved in the Permesta rebellion against the Indonesian government centered on Sumatra and Sulawesi in 1958 [1957?]. Allegedly backed by the CIA, the movement was a complete failure and only achieved a distancing of Sukarno from the military and a closer relationship with the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).
His mother, Dora Marie Siregar, was a housewife who studied surgical nursing in the Netherlands, while his grandfather, Marjono Jojohadikosumo, was the founder of Bank Negara Indonesia and the first chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council, which was dissolved in 2003. He was named "Prabow Subianto" after his uncle, who was killed in battle against the Japanese in Tangerang during the Indonesian National Revolution.
While his father was on the run for supporting the failed regional revolt, Prabowo grew up in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Britain. He graduated from the military academy in 1974. His brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo is the owner of the Arsari Group of companies and the deputy chief patron of Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party.
Prabowo studied primary school in Hong Kong, middle school at the Victoria Institute in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, in (1962-1963) and the Zurich International School in Zurich, Switzerland, in (1963-1964). He graduated from high school from the American School in London, England, in 1969. Prabowo was educated in international schools in Kuala Lumpur, Zurich and London before returning to Indonesia in 1970 to enroll in the prestigious Armed Forces Academy (now Military Academy) in Magelang, Central Java. After graduating from high school, he joined the Magelang Military Academy (Akmel) in 1969 [the exact chronology is a bit jumbled], and graduated in 1974. Those close to him say that the person whom Prabowo was most influenced by and who he considers his role model is the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk.
Prabowo developed his business skills while in Jordan, developing the oil and gas company Karazanbasmunai in Kazakhstan. Back in Indonesia, he is CEO of palm oil company PT Tidar Kerinci Agung, mining company PT Nusantara Energy and president director of fishery company PT Jaladri Nusantara.
In 1976 he went to East Timor as part of Tim Nanggala X, a special forces unit that belonged to Kopassandha, later called Kopassus. He undertook anti-terrorist training in the US (Fort Bragg, 1980; Fort Benning, 1985), and in West Germany (GSG-9, about 1981), scoring 'top graduate' each time. In 1983, sent to East Timor as a major in charge of Kopassus Detachment 81 (D81), he established the Tim Alfa militia in Lospalos. He was involved in the Kraras massacre of September 1983. In 1988-89 he was in East Timor again, in command of the Kostrad combat Battalion 328. He turned it into such a highly trained unit that it was chosen as the best battalion in East Timor.
Prabowo became commander of the Airborne Infantry Battalion of the Army's Strategic Reserve Command (COSTRAD) in 1987 after completing the Special Forces Officers' Course at Fort Benning in the United States..After eight years in Kostrad he returned to Kopassus [Army Special Forces] in 1993 as commander of its Group 3, a special forces training unit in Batujajar, West Java, that also played a role training militia leaders. He commanded the unit running covert operations. He rose to Deputy Commander of Kopassus in 1994-95, and to Kopassus Commander in 1995-98. In March 1998 he was moved back to Kostrad, becoming Kostrad Commander. eventually becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Special Forces (COPASSUS) in 1996.
The dramatic period leading up to the resignation of Suharto in May 1998 saw growing suspicion of Prabowo’s role in a number of incidents. He was considered responsible for ordering the shooting of students at Trisakti University as they returned to campus after a demonstration, killing four and sparking three days of riots that dramatically weakened Suharto’s hold on power. The president, on a visit to Egypt, was reported to have been alarmed that Prabowo's actions to secure the presidential palace, considered by some to represent an attempt at a coup.
With Suharto’s resignation, Prabowo is also reported to have been involved in an altercation outside the home of the new president, BJ Habibie, which was also believed to have been a move to overthrow the new government.
In March 1998, Prabowo was appointed Commander of Costarad, a position previously held by former President Suharto before assuming the presidency in 1965. After Suharto stepped down as president in May 1998 and the beginning of the new multi-party and democratic regime, Prabowo assumed leadership of the Command and Staff College in Bandung, and shortly thereafter was discharged from the army after being accused of involvement in the kidnapping of student activists in 1998 and human rights violations in Papua and East Timor.
His discharge from military service also came after he ordered his forces to besiege the presidential palace during the era of Yusuf Habibie, who succeeded Suharto in ruling the country, which prompted the Officers’ Honor Council to try him before a military court, and his dismissal from the army on July 14, 1998 after he was convicted of 7 charges.
LtGen (ret) Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo, former commander of Kopassus and Kostrad, was not a suspect in the 1999 violence in East Timor. Although a major influence on Indonesian counter-insurgency tactics in East Timor beginning in 1989/90, he was out of the country throughout 1999. Having been dismissed from his Kostrad command in May 1998, and from the military entirely in August 1998, Prabowo had no TNI position in 1999. Instead he was in self-imposed exile in Jordan, doing business with his wealthy brother. The many rumours, all of them unproven, that he was still in Indonesia anyway, and directing clandestine operations in East Timor, indicate the power he once held.
Among the many 1999 militia leaders who were Prabowo's proteges were Eurico Guterres, Lafaek Saburai, Martinho Fernandes, and Joni Marquez. Governor Abilio Soares owed his career largely to Prabowo's support. Many of the soldiers (especially in Kopassus) who directed the militias in 1999 had been Prabowo's subordinates at some stage. Among them were: MajGen Adam Damiri, MajGen Mahidin Simbolon, BrigGen Amirul Isnaeni, Col Gerhan Lentara, and LtCol Wioyotomo Nugroho. Others had been his colleagues: Gen Subagyo H S, MajGen Zacky Anwar Makarim, MajGen Sjafrie Syamsuddin, MajGen Kiki Syahnakri, LtGen Johny Lumintang, and Col Pramono Edhie Wibowo.
Following his dismissal, he went to reside in self-imposed exile in Jordan, and from there to European countries, then returned to Indonesia in 2001, and followed in the footsteps of his younger brother, businessman Hashim Jojohadikosumo, who is considered one of the richest businessmen in Indonesia, and has assets all over the world from Indonesia to Europe and North America.
Prabowo established several companies operating in the energy, palm oil, coal, gas, mining, agriculture, and fishing industries.
The United States imposed a travel ban on him and a group of Special Forces Command, due to accusations of human rights violations against the people of East Timor. This ban continued until 2022, when it was actually lifted so that Prabowo could visit the United States in his capacity as Minister of Defense of Indonesia.
Prabowo broke into the world of politics and party life in 2004 by joining the Golkar Party (the party of former President Suharto), and since then the former military man has been fighting to win the presidential battle. He then made a series of attempts to reach power through presidential elections. He failed in the internal elections of the Golkar Party to choose the party's candidate for the presidential elections in 2004. He received the lowest number of votes with only 39 votes from the votes of the party conference.
He co-founded the "Girindra" party in 2008, and became its president in 2014. When Hashim Djojohadikusumo and brother [Maj. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto, established Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) in 2008, they had difficulties recruiting people as party executives. They believed they had no other choice except to give some positions in the party to family members or people they could trust.
He ran in the 2009 elections for vice president with the head of the National Struggle Party, Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of Ahmed Soekarno, the first president of Indonesia, but they lost the elections. Former president Megawati Soekarnoputri and Prabowo Subianto registered themselves as candidates for the presidency and vice presidency at the General Election Commission (KPU) on 16 May 2009.
In the 2009 presidential election, Prabowo Subianto plowed in huge sums of money to the campaign, seemingly in a dress rehearsal for a presidential run in 2014. Megawati's "people's economy" platform proposed the strongest role for government intervention. Megawati's protectionist economic policies were reinforced by running mate Prabowo Subianto's populist rhetoric, including calls for debt rescheduling. The Megawati campaign highlighting increasing inequality, urban-rural disparities, and Java-outer island divides during the Yudhoyono administration. The "people's economy" platform focused on developing the informal sector, increasing agricultural productivity, and implementing a bottom-up approach to economic development. Prabowo - who is fiercely ambitious - seemed to be assiduously setting himself up for a run at the presidency in the future by paying his dues on the campaign trail now.
Voters in Indonesia, the world's third largest democracy, headed to the polls 09 July 2014 to choose a new president in a race described as one of the tightest in recent history. Some 190 million Indonesians, including about 67 million first-time voters, will choose between two candidates with very distinct leadership styles. Both men are vying to replace President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has served the maximum two-term limit. Former Army General Prabowo Subianto is a fiery speaker whose campaign centered on nationalism. The son of a noted economist and former government minister is admired for his firmness, a quality supporters say is required to maintain unity in a sprawling archipelago that is home to hundreds of different ethnicities and cultures. In the 2014 elections, Prabowo lost to Joko Widodo (Jokowi), and filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court alleging "widespread and systematic" fraud in the elections, but the lawsuit was rejected.
He ran again for president in the 2019 elections, and his supporters took to the city streets to protest the election result, which turned violent. He again filed a lawsuit in court alleging fraud, but his claim was rejected again. Following the hotly contested elections, Jokowi offered Prabowo the position of Defense Minister, and the latter accepted the offer, and his party joined the government coalition.
Prabowo made his third attempt to reach the presidency as a candidate for the position of vice president alongside Gebran Rakabuming Raka (President Jokowi's eldest son, whose second term ends in October 2024). They raised their election campaign slogan, "Together we move towards Golden Indonesia 2045." One of the most prominent things he announced in his election campaign was his call to rebalance Indonesia's foreign relations, by strengthening its relations with China and India instead of the West.
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