Jakarta – Al Jazeera recently conducted an exclusive interview with Indonesia’s President-elect, Prabowo Subianto, which was uploaded to the station’s YouTube channel on Sunday (12/5).
The prominent international media outlet highlighted Prabowo’s significant victory in the election, winning nearly 60% of the votes in 32 provinces, and discussed the factors that contributed to the success of the Prabowo-Gibran campaign message reaching the public.
During the interview, Prabowo mentioned one of the factors that influenced the success of his campaign was his experience in consistently delivering the campaign message to the public from previous elections, along with being the incumbent party.
“This time I think it’s a combination of things, maybe when I have participated twice before. I think my message, my narrative, my principles reached the people, and this time of course I have to say that I felt I was actually part of the incumbent team,” said Prabowo.
Furthermore, Al Jazeera noted the ‘Jokowi effect’ on Prabowo’s success in the 2024 Presidential Election. In response to this, Prabowo acknowledged the phenomenon, citing the high public satisfaction with Jokowi’s government as reflected in various national surveys.
“President Joko Widodo has around an 82-83% good rating in public opinion polls, and of course, the people feel his commitment to improve the conditions of the people, especially the poor. So, I think the Jokowi effect really helped me,” he said.
He also felt that he shared the same principles as Jokowi, focusing on improving public welfare and eradicating poverty.
“He has the same principles as me. As Indonesians, we want our people to live with dignity. They cannot live in poverty,” he added.
Then, Al Jazeera asked about the challenges faced by the Prabowo-Gibran campaign in reaching their message to the youth, a demographic that gives more than 50% of the total votes.
Prabowo explained that job creation was a major concern for young voters during the campaign. He also noted that the younger generation, who are most proficient in technology, are adept at distinguishing honest leadership from artificial ones.
“You know, young people care more about jobs because this is their future. The younger generation lives in the era of social media, the information revolution, which is developing very quickly,” he said.
“I believe the younger generation can quickly see who is honest and who is fabricated,” he added.
