The 71-year-old former general has a hard man image but has deployed a different tack in his third try for the presidency, says journalist Erin Cook, who covers Southeast Asia politics.
Next year is shaping up differently. With thejuggernaut out of the race after completing his two-term limit, Prabowo’s enormous blocs of support in the previous two votes become very valuable. Tens of millions of first-time voters have begun thinking about who they’ll cast their votes for.Polling conducted in May for media outlet Kompas found 32.7 per cent of respondents between 17 and 26 years supported Prabowo, well ahead of Ganjar at 24.5 per cent.
Prabowo is “ganteng”, or handsome, and “gemes” - an Indonesian word often translated to “cute” but more evocative of the irresistible sensation of squeezing the cheeks of a young child or picking up a puppy and hugging it, for example. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June, he controversially called for peace “negotiations” between Ukraine and Russia in what he characterised as “disputed territories”. One message to the world and another to domestic audiences is hardly a unique phenomenon, but the marked shift in Prabowo’s domestic image in recent months is compelling and appears to be paying off for him.
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