Protests and Riots Signal Indonesia Entering New Conjuncture.

Indonesia is entering an unpredictable new conjuncture in its political journey

The short article below was published in Zaobao newspaper, Singapore, on 17 September in Chinese language.

It is an initial summing up of the events that took place from August 25 lasting a week or so in Indonesia. My own view is that these events are a symptom of Indonesia entering a new conjuncture in its political and economic journey - what I might term a dead-end phase. This dead-end is the consequence of economic, and especially politico-cultural decisions taken throughout the six decades since 1965, the year that political contestation of Indonesia’s future was ended through mass violent suppression.

Analysing the dynamics of this new conjuncture requires caution and precision. The accumulation of the consequences of colonialism, six decades of politico-cultural suppression and dead-end economic policy decisions have produced a complex mix of processes that have only just begun to take the country into a new conjuncture. The article below merely attempt to report on some aspects of the initial, more vivid, manifestations of this process. As things unfold, I will attempt more extended analysis. Some of the will, I hope, be published in the platforms of the ISEAS - Yusof Isak Institute, others here on my Substack. Readers may also be interested in reading my article “Indonesia’s Colonial Legacy and the Challenges for the Global South” published in the Beijing Cultural Review this month.

Anyway here is my Zaobao column. (https://zb.sg/g/btNc)

Protests and riots highlight growing frustration across Indonesia

By Max Lane

Jakarta police released 156 high school students detained during an August 25 protest outside the House of Representatives (DPR) complex in Senayan. Platform motor bike drivers (ojol), a growing segment of Jakarta’s urban poor, also demonstrated. The demonstration flared in a number of sites around Jakarta but focused finally at the Indonesian parliament. Rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown by demonstrators during the course of the day. The police used water cannons and tear gas against the protesters.

A second demonstration followed on August 28. In the morning, it was unions affiliated to the Labor Party, who actually support the government. In the afternoon and into the evening, more high school students, platform drivers and some tertiary students came. In the attempt to disperse the crowd, a platform motor bike driver delivering food was run over by a police armoured car and died. His death, widely publicised on social media, sparked demonstrations around the country over the following days, some resulting in physical clashes with the police and the burning of cars and buildings.

The demonstrations were called for by viral social media posts. These posts struck a chord given the deepening anger that has been long simmering but has accelerated during 2025. It’s crucial to note the major demands that were identified as being voiced from among the protesters, in Jakarta and elsewhere:

Anger at the large income of members of parliament and police violence was the focus of much social media commentary, as well as the protests. Demands for abolition of parliamentary allowances and ending onerous taxes on the ordinary people also had a high profile. Amongst thousands of people mobilising on the streets of more than 30 cities, most not members of any organisation, there were no doubts other demands raised.

All through the last several years there have been protests of various kinds around different issues. The most recent dramatic demonstrations occurred over August 13–14 in the Regent's office against Regent Sudewo's 250% Rural and Urban Land and Building Tax (PBB-P2) increase and demanding his resignation. The regent's refusal to meet protesters led to confrontation: police used water cannons and tear gas; protesters burned a police vehicle and breached gates. Similar tax protests erupted in Central Java and Sulawesi. Soon after the protests, the government conceded ordering the tax increases to be repealed.

Just as these demonstrations are being discussed virally through the social media, the elite political class has exhibited an extraordinary tone-deafness reflecting the embedded sense of impunity flowing from twenty years of party cartel state rule. While slogans like “Indonesia is Darkness” and “Let’s Get Out of Here Now!” and “Indonesia is Not OK” remain viral, alongside the raising of the pirate “One Piece” flag, politicians gave each other pay rises, praised the good state of the country, claim Indonesia is “in the Light” and is “baik-baik saja”(all ok), criticise the common people for being greedy, raise taxes and fees that ordinary people pay, give the impression that they think “teachers are a burden on the state” (even if they don’t say that exactly) and award the highest state awards to rich businessmen who have been convicted of high level corruption or cabinet Ministers who haven’t even served a year in the Cabinet.

Without political leadership or ideology, the wave of mobilisations died away quickly. Starting on August 25, they had dwindled by August 30. On August 31, when President Prabowo authorised the police and army to take firm action against riots, Jakarta was relatively quiet, with just small sporadic protests in other locations. During the week of protests, at least 6 people died in confrontations with the police, and 4 because of fires set by those on the streets. There are hundreds till detained and some whose location has not been found yet. The government has made its first arrests of NGO figures. They are alleged to have shared postings explaining how to make Molotov cocktails and urging the burning of police stations. However, there is deep suspicion among the broad civil society about such allegations and an associated suspicion of both elite, police and army intelligence provocations and involvement. Many in civil society fear intensifying repression.

However, in desperate search for an economic surge to reach Prabowo’s 8% GDP, the government, and the elite as a whole, cannot afford to see investors scared away by repeated waves of protests and riots. The stock exchange fell during those five days. A conspicuous and very new feature of both the government and elite response to the protests has been a string of much highlighted concessions: rescinding of the big income increases for members of parliaments, many statements by elite figures “minta maaf” (saying sorry) to the country, demotion of the most tone-deaf MPs, promises for a reform of parliament and the dishonourable discharge of a police officer and demotion of the armoured car driver who ran over the platform driver. This was topped off on September 8 by the replacement of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, whose morose face reproduced virally on social media has been a symbol of the government's tax and austerity policies.

The new Finance Minister, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, first statement, began his tenure with his own tone-deaf statement, lampooned virally in social media, saying that the recent protests were the voices of just a small segment of the people facing difficulties and that that discontent will disappear and people will makan enak (eat well) soon when he achieves a 6% or 7% growth rate. Already, within 24 hours of appointment, University of Indonesia students have demonstrated calling for his dismissal. There can be little doubt Indonesia is entering a period more pregnant with the possibility of unpredictable protests, which will challenge the organisations of civil society to provide solutions to answer the discontent.