The slow boiling of Indonesian democracy

The most consequential changes in a democracy do not always arrive with a constitutional crisis. Rather, they come through appointments, legal amendments and seemingly ordinary political bargains, accumulating one after another until the political system begins to look different from the one that came before. That is the real value of the “boiling frog” metaphor. It is not a scientific theory, but a political image for gradual adaptation. When change comes suddenly, resistance can be immediate. When the temperature rises slowly, however, every increase can appear tolerable. The danger lies not in one dramatic decision, but in the cumulative effect of many decisions that gradually become the new normal. Indonesia’s political temperature arguably began rising during President Joko Widodo’s second term, well before Prabowo Subianto became president. The 2019 weakening of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the expanding concentration of political power, the erosion of legislative and judicial checks, and, eventually, the constitutional maneuver that enabled Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run for vice president became milestones in what scholars and observers describe as democratic decline. International IDEA now records declines in Indonesia in credible elections, parliamentary effectiveness, freedom of expression, access to justice and judicial independence. V-Dem places Indonesia at its lowest democratic level since the beginning of the 21st century. Prabowo did not initially stand outside this transformation. He entered Widodo’s government in October 2019, only months after losing the presidential election to him, becoming defense minister. The former electoral rival was thus incorporated into the very political system whose institutional balance had already begun to change. Boiling anti-democratic waters The 2019 revision of the law governing the KPK was among the clearest early signs that the democratic temperature was changing. Parliament approved changes that placed the once relatively independent anti-corruption agency under an external supervisory body, restricted its wiretapping powers and required its investigators to become civil servants. Critics warned that the changes would weaken one of the country’s most important checks on political corruption. Nationwide protests followed, and then-President Widodo ultimately allowed the revised law to stand. The 2020 Omnibus Law on Job Creation was passed amid mass protests and criticism over the limited scope of public consultation. Human Rights Watch later documented broader concerns over the erosion of civil and political rights during the Widodo years, while academic research has described the period as one of executive aggrandizement, meaning the gradual dismantling of mechanisms designed to constrain executive authority. At the same time, Widodo’s government increasingly relied on a broad governing coalition. International IDEA notes that Indonesia’s coalition presidentialism can produce a political “cartel” in which large numbers of parties enter government, leaving little effective opposition and weakening scrutiny of executive action. By the end of Widodo’s presidency, this dynamic had become particularly pronounced. The culmination came in 2023. The Constitutional Court created an exception to the minimum age requirement, allowing 36-year-old Gibran to run for vice president alongside Prabowo. Anwar Usman, Widodo’s brother-in-law and Gibran’s uncle, then headed the court. An ethics panel subsequently found Usman guilty of an ethical violation and removed him from the chief justice position. However, the ruling itself remained in force. The frog, in other words, had not suddenly been thrown into boiling water. The water had been warming for years. Prabowo ups the temperature Prabowo’s rise, then, cannot be understood as a complete break with the political order that preceded him. He was, in fact, one of its beneficiaries and participants. His 2019 appointment as defense minister transformed a bitter electoral rivalry into a governing partnership and brought one of the country’s most important poles of opposition from outside the government inside. The logic grew clearer in the 2024 election. Prabowo ran with Gibran, whose eligibility the contested court ruling had secured, and the pairing joined two political trajectories that had once been separate: Prabowo’s long-held presidential ambitions and Mr. Joko’s growing dynastic influence. This is where the idea of political absorption is more useful than the simpler language of repression. Opposition does not always have to be banned. Sometimes it can be incorporated. That distinction matters because Indonesia remains a functioning electoral democracy. Parties compete, elections are held, journalists and civil society groups continue to criticize the government, and political disputes remain visible. Freedom House still classifies Indonesia as “Partly Free,” rather than an authoritarian state. Yet it also records concerns about weakened opposition, dynastic politics and declining institutional checks. Prabowo’s seventh Cabinet reshuffle on October 1, 2026, and the formation of a new Presidential Advisory Council the following day, provide the latest illustration. The reshuffle changed several senior positions, including the foreign minister and national police chief. One day later, Prabowo appointed 26 members to the Presidential Advisory Council, bringing together politicians, former ministers, business figures, religious leaders, security officials and intellectuals, including Rocky Gerung and former Constitutional Court chief justice Anwar Usman. None of these appointments, taken individually, proves democratic erosion. The more important question is cumulative: what happens when an increasing share of political, economic, religious and intellectual capital is located inside the presidential orbit? When outsiders become insiders Rocky Gerung and Syahganda Nainggolan offer two particularly revealing examples, although they represent very different political trajectories. Rocky, one of Indonesia’s most prominent public intellectuals and critics, now sits on the Presidential Advisory Council. His appointment does not mean that he has abandoned his critical views. Indeed, he has said that he intends to remain critical. Yet the institutional location of criticism has changed: a voice that once operated primarily outside presidential power now has direct access to its advisory machinery. Syahganda’s trajectory is even more striking. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he was listed as a spokesman for the Anies-Muhaimin national campaign team. He later moved closer to Prabowo’s administration and, on October 2, 2026, was appointed head of the Government Communications Agency (Bakom). The point is not that Syahganda was “neutralized” or that Rocky has been transformed into a government loyalist. What the appointments show is structural: people who once occupied political space outside the presidential establishment can be incorporated into the institutions through which presidential power is exercised. That is a different mechanism from repression. It is elite incorporation, and once enough potential counterweights are incorporated, the question changes from whether opposition exists to whether enough independent political capacity remains outside the executive orbit for opposition to be effective. The comfort of populism Significantly, the political reconfiguration is occurring alongside an expansive populist policy agenda. That matters because institutional consolidation does not necessarily require an unpopular government. Prabowo’s Free Nutritious Meals program, free health screening and plans to widen access to higher education are designed to produce tangible benefits. Whatever their political implications, these programs address real material concerns and can generate genuine public support. They thus should not be dismissed as propaganda or mere distractions. But popular redistribution and political centralization can coexist. Indeed, this may be one of the most important features of Indonesia’s current trajectory. While political attention is fixed on the cost, implementation and benefits of MBG, free education and other welfare initiatives, the architecture of power can continue changing elsewhere. Public debate remains focused on what government delivers, while scrutiny of how government power itself is being reorganized is largely muted. That’s creating so-called political insulation. Material benefits can strengthen legitimacy even as institutional counterweights become less autonomous. The argument, then, is not that Prabowo has abolished Indonesian democracy, but rather that is undergoing a gradual transformation in which formal institutions survive while the distribution of effective political power changes around them. The process began under Widodo, particularly during his second term, and has taken on a new configuration under Prabowo, with former outsiders, ex-critics, and influential elites increasingly represented in the executive office. The frog, therefore, is not being boiled by one president alone. The water was already warm when Prabowo entered the kitchen. The real question is what happens when the temperature keeps rising? Indonesia’s democracy is still alive, but democracy is more than elections. It also depends on independent institutions, meaningful opposition and the ability of actors outside executive power to impose limits on those who govern. The danger is not that Indonesians wake up one day to discover that their democracy has disappeared. The subtler danger is that democracy remains formally intact while, degree by degree, fewer institutions retain the power to cool the water. Ronny P Sasmita is senior international affairs analyst at Indonesia Strategic and Economic Action Institution, a Jakarta-based think tank. he holds a PhD from the University of Tokyo.