4 THE MILITARY

The Military’s Power

The Indonesian military’s effective political power (as opposed to its formal one) becomes clear only when its history is integrated into an assessment of its overall contemporary status. Between 1945 and 1949, the military was at the forefront of the armed conflict with the Dutch, who wanted to reclaim their former colony after the end of World War II (Lowry 1996). While the Indonesian army lost the fight militarily and was only saved by an intervention from Washington that forced the Dutch to negotiate, the period of struggle instilled a sense of historical entitlement in the officer corps. The generals demanded an institutionalized role in post-independence politics, believing that it had a right (and indeed, an obligation) to protect the nation from both security and political threats. Sukarno granted the armed forces such a role in 1959, and after this was deemed insufficient, they grabbed full power in 1966 (Crouch 1978; Roosa 2006). For the next thirty-two years, the military formed the backbone of Suharto’s New Order regime: first as a political hegemon in its own right, and later as the palace guard for the aging president’s autocracy (Schwarz 2004). Even when relegated to agent status by Suharto in the later periods of his regime, the military was able to ensure that it remained deeply engrained in the country’s political psyche (Honna 2003). Military symbols and practices were idolized and reproduced in schools, universities, the bureaucracy, and daily life. After Suharto’s fall, the generals could rest assured that the long-term societal power base they had built up since 1945 would not dissipate quickly—despite the protest and upheaval the military faced during the regime change in 1998 (Mietzner 2009a).

Before the operation of the post-2004 presidential system, the military sent signals of its continued power and expectation that it needed to be compensated for its loyalty. Between 1998 and 2003, severe communal violence rocked the democratic transition, with thousands of people killed in ethno-religious conflicts in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Maluku (van Klinken 2007). There were credible reports of the military doing little to stop the violence and, in some instances, even actively fueling it (Bertrand 2002, 81). At the national level, civilian elites were convinced that the military could do more to address the crisis if it wanted to—and if it felt more committed to the emerging democratic order. They were not wrong: as one officer confirmed, “some of my colleagues sit on their hands to force the government to make them promises” (interview with Agus Wirahadikusumah, Makassar, February 23, 2000). Consequently, post-1998 governments took several steps to appease the military and purchase its cooperation. They agreed to a significant expansion of the military’s size—from a strength of 334,000 in 2001 to more than 438,000 in the second half of the 2000s.² The budget also increased along with the economy’s growth, flushing more money into the coffers of the generals (the budget more than doubled from US$2 billion in 2001 to US$4.5 billion in 2010). Moreover, after an initial drive to reform the military institutionally and hold it to account for human rights abuses committed under Suharto, such moves slowed down in the early and mid-2000s (Honna 2018, 2019). This abortion of reformist policy initiatives suggested to the military that it could co-exist with democratic governments through arrangements with its leaders.

Pre-2004 presidents also felt the residual powers of the military in more direct ways. Habibie’s 1999 bid for re-election was effectively terminated by the announcement of the then military chief Wiranto that he would not be available as his vice president. Similarly, Wahid’s presidency ended in 2001 when the military refused to heed his calls to protect him from the impeachment proceedings in the DPR and MPR. Leading generals refused to implement Wahid’s July 2001 decree to “freeze” parliament and ban Golkar. They also rejected his plans to conduct a major reshuffle to place more loyalists in the military hierarchy (Barton 2006). The armed forces leadership’s firm stance emboldened the DPR and the MPR to execute their impeachment of Wahid. When it came to a vote, the generals (then still represented in both bodies) opted against the incumbent president. As noted, this experience profoundly impacted on Yudhoyono, who was Wahid’s chief political minister at that time. Yudhoyono, himself a former general, concluded from Wahid’s fall that presidents had to balance Indonesia’s various forces to prevent “chaos” and stabilize governance. Thus, as the 2002 constitutional amendments put Indonesia’s new presidentialism into place, and as the 2004 presidential elections marked the official start of its operations, the country’s post-amendment presidents entered the new era with a full understanding of how the military could potentially destabilize their rule—or how, alternatively, they had a chance of governing calmly if the generals supported the incumbent’s administration.

Partly because of its successful lobbying, the military retained substantial formal powers in the democratic polity. This was despite the fact that it lost its representatives in the DPR and MPR in 2004, and despite the separation of the police (as well as its internal security function) from the armed forces in 1999. One of the remaining military powers was drawn from the still-active 1959 Law on States of Emergency, through which the military gains special powers during civil or military emergencies and in times of war. Once a status of military emergency is declared, for example, the local military commander becomes the head of the emergency administration. In Indonesia’s history, this occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s, allowing the military to consolidate its power in the regions. Under the lower-level status of a civil emergency, the local government head remains in office—but the local military commander becomes one of his or her chief advisers, meaning that the local military command turns into the de facto political and security power center. In the post-Suharto polity, such civil emergency regimes were established for Aceh (2004–2005) and Maluku (2000–2003), and Widodo briefly considered declaring a state of civil emergency (presumably for the entire territory of Indonesia) in March 2020 to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. After a civil society backlash that warned of the potential increase in the military’s power through such a declaration, Widodo shelved his plans but included numerous military officers in the COVID-19 emergency response team (Jaffrey 2020). In addition to the 1959 law, a host of other regulations and inter-agency agreements grant the military special powers, ranging from rural development roles to education in remote areas (IPAC 2016).

The military’s biggest power resource in contemporary Indonesia remains its territorial command structure (Haripin 2019). This structure, developed during the regional conflicts of the late 1950s, places military units at all levels of civil administration. As a consequence, every local official, from the governor to the village head, has a military counterpart (see table 4.1). This matters greatly as many decisions at the local level are made in a Regional Leadership Forum (previously called Muspida but after 2014 named Forkopimda), which includes the head of the civil administration, the military commander, the police chief, the chief of the attorney general’s office, and other important figures. Reflecting the political influence of each institution, the forum’s power dynamics give particular weight to the word of the military commander. Aware of the significance of this territorial command structure to its institutional interests, the military fought hard after 1998 to defend it. Under Wahid, there had been an initiative to disband the system, driven by a small group of officers affiliated with Agus Wirahadikusumah. Arguing that the structure was an obstacle to military modernization, Wirahadikusumah proposed to dismantle the system gradually. With this suggestion, he made many enemies within the ranks, and when Wahid tried to promote him to army chief of staff, other senior officers threatened to resign. Eventually, Wirahadikusumah was sidelined, Wahid fell, and the reform of the territorial command system was aborted. According to Wirahadikusumah, “the idea of abolishing the territorial system destroyed me, and Wahid, too. The military couldn’t take it” (interview, Agus Wirahadikusumah, Jakarta, July 5, 2001). Subsequently, the system was maintained and expanded further, with four new provincial commands added between 2002 and 2016.

In providing the military with a nationwide network, the territorial command system equates to an infrastructure through which generals could potentially launch a coup. In the eventuality of a takeover, the territorial structure would allow for seamless cross-regional coordination of military units, which could then move rapidly against their civilian equivalents at each level. Though the Indonesian military is not as coup happy as its Thai or Myanmar counterparts (it even continues to deny that the 1966 takeover constituted a coup), it enjoys regular rumors about the possibility of a coup as indicators of its continued power. In late 2016, for example, Indonesian newspapers were filled with discussions about the potentiality of the military usurping power from Widodo as Islamist demonstrators took over the streets of Jakarta (Gumilang 2016). Observers at that time noted an increased frequency of presidential visits to military units, feeding speculation that Widodo was trying to fend off a coup by issuing hidden warnings to the generals (Wicaksono 2016). When Indonesian presidents make such calculations on the likelihood of a coup against them, the territorial command system is at the center of their thinking. This was the reason Wahid wanted to dissolve it. As he explained in 1999, briefly before taking office, “we need to get rid of that system. Otherwise it will come after us” (interview with Abdurrahman Wahid, Jakarta, September 15, 1999). With Wahid proven right about the military turning against him, post-2001 presidents concluded that reforming the system would increase the risk of a coup or other forms of insubordination, and hence decided not to push the issue with the generals (Kusandi and Wahono 2020).

Accordingly, the Indonesian military can bring much leverage to the table when negotiating with presidents over their interests and demands. Its monopoly on the instruments of warfare gives it an advantage over non-armed civilian actors. By agreeing to use these instruments—or deciding not to—the military can stabilize or destabilize the rule of incumbent presidents. It can also deliberately sabotage governments that it deems unsupportive of its agenda. Moreover, the deep entrenchment of the armed forces in Indonesia’s history, social life, and concepts of authority make it a source of legitimacy many politicians want to draw from. In short, there are multiple reasons why presidents can ill afford to face a hostile or just uncooperative military—and an equal number of incentives to appease and reward the generals for securing their loyalty. As we shall see, Indonesian presidents have typically acted within this incentive structure; but before explaining how exactly they have done that in the post-2004 polity, the next section explores the constitutional powers of the president vis-à-vis the armed forces. These powers, if used firmly and credibly, help the latter to design a strategy of achieving military cooperation that is not only the product of the incumbent’s fear of the military and a possible coup, but also—conversely—of the respect of the armed forces towards their president and formal supreme commander.

Presidents as Supreme Commanders

Indonesian presidents’ most important power resource vis-à-vis the armed forces is their constitutionally anchored position as holder of the “supreme authority” [kekuasaan tertinggi] over the army, navy, and air force. This function, first enshrined in the original 1945 constitution and maintained in the 2002 amendments, is similar to that of other presidents in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Outside of the constitution, the Indonesian president’s role as supreme commander was detailed in an MPR decree in 2000. It determined that the president appoints the military commander after gaining the approval of parliament (before 2000, no such endorsement was necessary).³ Despite this new appointment hurdle, the president’s right to pick the armed forces commander remains his or her primary instrument to control the military. It allows the president to appoint personal loyalists to discipline the rest of the officer corps, or to threaten the incumbent commander with removal should he disobey orders and work against the president’s interests. Under democracy, Indonesian presidents—both before and after the 2004 changes to the polity—have made extensive use of this authority. B.J. Habibie, a civilian technocrat without a power base, established his authority over the armed forces by telling the then-commander Wiranto that he wanted to replace him. This forced Wiranto to offer the military’s support to Habibie should he (Wiranto) be allowed to stay in his job (interview, Wiranto, Jakarta, October 13, 2000). Habibie agreed to the deal, with the armed forces tolerating most of his democratic reforms, including reducing the military’s role in formal politics.

The control of post-2004 presidents over the top military appointment has thus far remained intact, with all nominations approved by the DPR. Only in the earliest phase of his rule did Yudhoyono struggle to get his way. Shortly before departing the presidency, Megawati (who had lost the 2004 elections to Yudhoyono) nominated the archconservative chief of staff of the army, Ryamizard Ryacudu, as the new military commander. But Ryamizard was not confirmed before the old DPR’s term expired. This gave Yudhoyono, who was anxious about Ryamizard’s nationalist and potentially insubordinate views, an opportunity to revisit the nomination when he took office in October 2004. As one of his first acts as president, therefore, Yudhoyono withdrew Ryamizard’s nomination from parliament, insisting that the incumbent commander, Endriartono Sutarto, remain in place (interview, Endriartono Sutarto, Jakarta, June 11, 2007). The new DPR, then controlled by an anti-Yudhoyono majority, initially opposed the withdrawal of the nomination, demanding that Ryamizard attend a confirmation hearing. But using his position as supreme commander, Yudhoyono did not permit Ryamizard to visit the DPR, thus buying time until a solution could be found. This solution came in the form of Vice President Kalla’s takeover of the Golkar party in December 2004. As Yudhoyono slowly built a majority in parliament, the fight over Ryamizard’s nomination softened and eventually ended. Presidential control over the military in coalitional presidentialism, then, is intertwined with the broader balancing of other coalition partners.

In addition to the military commander, the president appoints the chiefs of staff of the army, the navy, and the air force. Unlike in the case of the military commander, the president does not have to seek the legislature’s approval for these appointments. This gives the president significant and direct control over the personnel that leads the military in its day-to-day operations. Below the chief of staff level, the president also formally appoints all senior officers at the suggestion of the military commander. This means that the president can object to the commander’s nominations and quietly propose alternatives.⁴ Such interventions in the internal appointments of the armed forces are often executed through the president’s Military Secretariat, which oversees his or her interactions with the generals. Importantly, the detailed organizational structure of the armed forces is determined through a presidential decree rather than through a law that would require the legislature’s consent. As a result, the president can change the military structure on his or her own accord. For instance, in November 2019, Widodo signed a presidential decree to create the new position of deputy military commander. While he had not filled the position by 2023, it gave him additional options to promote officers close to him. Including the position in a presidential decree also allowed him to circumvent potential legislative demands that the position should require the latter’s approval. Hence, Indonesian presidents possess crucial intervention powers in the composition and institutional set-up of the military’s organization, requiring the armed forces to seek arrangements with the president to prevent his or her hostile intrusion into internal military affairs.

In addition to the president’s appointment powers in regard to active military personnel, he or she can select retired officers to serve in other positions across the government infrastructure (Faishal 2017). This creates a strong incentive for high-ranking officers close to retirement to gain the president’s favor and cooperation in finding an influential (and lucrative) position after leaving the military. As noted, and as explored further below, including retired military officers in cabinet is a crucial element of coalitional presidentialism in Indonesia. Furthermore, presidents can place former military officers in other leading posts. For instance, the military commander from 2013 to 2015, Moeldoko, became Widodo’s chief of staff in 2018. Similarly, Endriartono Sutarto was named chief commissioner of the state oil company Pertamina in 2006, after having helped Yudhoyono to prevent the appointment of Ryamizard to the military commander post. In short, Indonesian presidents can combine their direct appointment authority vis-à-vis the military as an institution with more traditional appointment tools that, according to Chaisty, Cheeseman, and Power, are generally available to presidents to dispense patronage and bind political actors to their government’s interests.

The practice that Indonesian presidents appoint retired rather than active military officers as the institutions’ representatives in cabinet has historical roots. Active military officers had initially held cabinet positions from the late 1950s on. Sukarno had agreed to this concession to purchase the military’s loyalty, and after Suharto’s takeover in 1966, the appointment of active officers to cabinet and other government posts naturally escalated. But Suharto ended this trend after he retired from active service in 1978. Starting with the 1978 cabinet, most military officers holding ministries had to retire first; indeed, cabinet appointments became rewards for the president’s retiring long-time allies in the military or, occasionally, a way of removing from active service generals he viewed with suspicion. Exceptions were sometimes made for the minister of defense, but even in this case, it was more common for the post to be held by a retired general. After Suharto’s fall, democratic governments did not change this approach. As part of the reform process after 1998, laws and regulations were issued that stipulated which posts in the bureaucracy active officers can be appointed to (mostly secondments in the Ministry of Defense or the Coordinating Ministry of Political, Legal, and Security Affairs), making all others unavailable for them. This, in turn, shaped the practice of presidents to use the appointment of retired military personnel as the main instrument to cement military participation in their coalitions.

The president’s budgetary powers, another tool in the toolbox described by Chaisty, Cheeseman, and Power, are also essential for the interests of the armed forces and their officer corps. In terms of formal military budget flows, presidents and their aides decide how much money they are willing (or able) to provide to the armed forces every year. As with other actors, the military typically lobbies the government (and the legislature) for overall budget increases and specific items. Of particular importance are high-cost allocations for foreign defense equipment acquisitions, which offer patronage opportunities for the responsible officers. How such budget allocations can benefit individual military members became obvious in a 2016 case involving the purchase of helicopters for the air force (Saputra 2021). The officers in charge had the helicopters included in the government’s five-year strategic plan, which allowed the air force to go ahead with the purchase. Private agents affiliated with the officers signed a contract for US$40 million with the producers but charged the state US$56 million for them. The case only became public because Widodo had asked the military commander to annul the contract (the helicopters were reported to be luxury versions acquired for the president—an impression Widodo wanted to avoid). The officers, already tied up with the existing contracts, proceeded anyway, leading an angry Widodo to demand explanations. The KPK interviewed eight air force officers, but by late 2022, only one civilian had been charged, while the military police terminated the investigation of its personnel. Widodo had thus sent a warning, but the lucrative procurement system remained in place.

The Indonesian president has another equally important role in military budgeting: that is, to disrupt or tolerate the traditional off-budget fundraising of the armed forces (Rieffel and Pramodhawardani 2007). Under Suharto, it was widely believed that the military gained up to two-thirds of its operational funds from off-budget activities. Suharto viewed such off-budget financing as a privilege of the military, allowing it to raise funds, and enrich its officers, without the scrutiny of state agencies. In Suharto’s eyes, the military’s external search for funds made the generals more dependent on him and his financial cronies, creating another bond of loyalty between the president and the officer corps. After 1998, the practice of self-funding was gradually reduced, but it did not disappear (Mietzner and Misol 2013). Senior officers still forge extensive relationships with oligarchs who expect security protection and other services in return for their unofficial contributions to the military as an institution and its officers. The significant wealth among the top brass is testimony to this pattern. Wiranto, for instance, reported a wealth of about US$42 million in 2019, while Andika Perkasa, the commander installed in 2021, recorded US$13 million. In Wiranto’s case, this wealth allowed him to pursue a post-retirement career in politics, resulting in his funding the establishment of a party and holding a senior cabinet post in the first Widodo cabinet. For the most part, post-2004 presidents have accepted the continuation of military self-funding as something that keeps the officer corps satisfied—and as something they could threaten to end should the armed forces show signs of political disloyalty.

In sum, Indonesian presidents have much at their disposal to counterbalance the armed forces’ massive political and security weight. Based on their constitutional powers, they can hire and fire military leaders; change the institutional organization of the armed forces by the strike of a pen; control official military budgets and patronage flows in the officer corps; offer non-military appointments to senior leaders looking for post-retirement opportunities; and acquiesce toward, or intervene in, the military’s off-budget funding regime. In reality, they need to carefully calibrate these powers, given a possible military backlash. Consequently, the negotiation between the two sides occurs in the give-and-take framework of coalitional presidentialism, similar to the mechanisms with which presidents ensure the cooperation of—and try to prevent hostile attacks by—parties and the legislature.

Managing the Military

The attempts of presidents and the military to influence, control, and utilize each other are compellingly represented in a customary act of Indonesian political theater: the initiation of presidents into military units as titular members. In April 2015, for instance, Widodo was initiated as an honorary “citizen” of the Special Forces, the Marines, and the air force’s Special Unit Corps. In front of 6,500 troops and a parade of military equipment Widodo was given military berets and combat uniforms from the units, one of which he wore while posing for pictures with the top brass. As a president without military roots, and Indonesia’s first from a non-elite background, Widodo seemed to appreciate the political symbolism associated with the event. “This morning, I am very proud of wearing the historic military uniform. It should make me look more dashing than usual,” the president told the troops (Teresia 2015). Moeldoko, the military commander at that time, responded with similar language, stating that “it makes us proud that you, Sir, have accepted [the unit membership] in good spirit. We, and all officers, want to show you that we are professional soldiers.” With this performance, carried out in front of the media, the two actors sent each other important messages. The military signaled that it accepted Widodo as the new supreme commander of the armed forces, but also that, as an honorary member, he was expected to protect their interests. The president, for his part, assumed his function as the chief of the military chiefs, expecting obedience toward his rule while also indicating respect for the officer corps.

Beyond such symbolic events, the president interacts with the military through various formal and informal channels. As noted, the presidential Military Secretariat is the main formal link between the head of state and the armed forces. This is mainly because the Indonesian military is not institutionally subordinated to the department of defense—as is often the case in other countries (Kemenhan 2021). Both the armed forces commander and the minister of defense are cabinet members, and both report to the president. While the defense minister has some coordinating functions, the military’s headquarters is the real power center of the Indonesian armed forces.⁵ Dealing directly with the president, as opposed to negotiating through the defense minister, is a significant element of that power. This, in turn, hands the Military Secretariat a special role in the president-military relationship. Part of this military structure in the palace are the president’s military adjutants, who are key communication bridges between the head of state and the armed forces headquarters. Adjutants are with the president almost around the clock and thus grow into personal confidants, giving the president insights into the thinking of the officer corps. Conversely, the adjutants are providing feedback to their military hierarchy as to the expectations and goals of the president. Almost invariably, military adjutants experience a rapid rise through the ranks after leaving the palace. We mentioned Widi Prasetijono before, but there have been others: Deddy Suryadi, for example, who served as Widodo’s adjutant between 2017 and 2019 and became commander of the Special Forces in 2023, rising even faster than Widi.

The Military Secretariat and its apparatus, therefore, constitute an essential pool from which presidents can recruit and groom loyal military officers who then spread across the ranks and promote the president’s interests. Another institution in the palace that adds to this pool is the Presidential Guard (Paspampres). Formally under the command of military headquarters, the head of the guard is as close to the president as the adjutants but significantly more senior in rank. Because of this seniority, holders of this post are more likely than the adjutants to rise to the top of the armed forces while the president is still in office. Andika Perkasa, for instance, was Widodo’s first Paspampres chief (2014–2016). His successor, Bambang Suswantono (2016–2017), was appointed as commander of the military academy, a three-star post, in 2020. The next head of the guard, Suhartono (2017–2018), became commander of the marine corps in 2018, and his replacement, Maruli Simanjuntak (2018–2020), was selected as commander of the powerful Strategic Reserve in 2022. In other words, within his first term in office, Widodo had created a clique of palace loyalists that, by his second term, reached the apex of military power and was able to safeguard the interests of the president in the day-to-day operations of the armed forces. Widodo’s aides pointed out that such an approach was necessary because they believed, in 2017, that “60 percent of the rank and file are supporters of Prabowo [Widodo’s adversary in the 2014 and 2019 elections], so we need to at least control the upper echelons” (confidential interview, Jakarta, February 7, 2017). Hence, appointing loyalists is an important instrument of enforcing coalitional loyalty in the military, especially if lower-ranking officers without direct interaction with the president are deemed untrustworthy.

Yudhoyono even placed family members with a military background in key positions in the armed forces and his party, PD. For example, his brother-in-law Pramono Edhie Wibowo was army chief of staff from 2011 to 2013. But while such family links might ensure the highest level of loyalty from the officer concerned, they risk damaging sympathies for the president in the rest of the military. This is because the negative image of nepotism can potentially undermine—rather than strengthen—the position of such family members and, by implication, the president himself. Pramono confirmed this pattern: “Don’t think that everyone respected me because I was the president’s brother in-law. As a soldier, I want to be respected because of my service and my position, not because of my family. Looking back, my relations with [Yudhoyono] might have hurt me more than they benefitted me” (interview, Jakarta, April 27, 2014). His links to the president certainly did not help in his candidacy for Yudhoyono’s succession in 2014, when after a lackluster campaign, he did not win the nomination of PD. Between 2005 and 2010, Yudhoyono had also put another brother-in-law, Hadi Utomo, in charge of the party. A retired colonel, Hadi was expected to hold the party together, using his military experience to impose discipline and establish links with active and retired military officers who held sympathies for the party. Hadi played this role effectively for a while but made room for a new generation of civilian party leaders in 2010.

How exactly do loyalist military officers, family members or otherwise, enforce the allegiance of the officer corps to the president in the armed forces’ routine operations? Endriartono Sutarto, military commander from 2002 and 2006, has offered some insights into this mechanism. As we have seen, Yudhoyono insisted on him staying in his position in 2004 because the president wanted to prevent the appointment of Ryamizard Ryacudu, the general nominated by Megawati. This constellation forged a strong bond between Endriartono and Yudhoyono, which was tested when the president signaled his intention to negotiate a peace deal with Acehnese separatists in 2005. Conservatives around Ryamizard opposed this deal, and the task of preventing insubordination in the ranks fell to Endriartono. “There was much upheaval, with some officers saying we should oppose the government, and so forth. I told them: you are serving this government, so if you don’t support what your government is doing, just resign and leave” (interview, Jakarta, June 11, 2007). Faced with dismissal or “suggested” resignations, most officers refrained from sabotaging the peace agreement signed with the Aceh rebels in Helsinki. To the surprise of many observers (and the dismay of some officers), the deal was still in place at the time of writing, approaching its twentieth anniversary.

As important as they are in keeping the military in ruling alliances, the presidents’ appointment powers are not a one-way street of coalitional presidentialism. Rather, every appointment comes with the expectation that loyalty is repaid with the president’s support of the military. Even if generals become part of the president’s network, they are still military officers—socialized for decades in a hierarchy that instilled in them a deep devotion to the organization’s agenda. Thus, loyalist officers might defend the president—but they know that the head of state must reciprocate for the institution to follow suit. This deal is embodied, among others, in the appointment of retired military officers to cabinet. These appointments are part of an informal but consistent arrangement between presidents and the military to mirror the latter’s participation in the presidential coalition. The level of military participation in presidential cabinets remains, more than twenty-five years after the onset of democratization, similar to those of the early post-Suharto period (with four or five former generals generally sitting in each cabinet after 1998). Some appointees concurrently represent political parties, but most are non-party figures. Luhut Pandjaitan, who held two senior positions in Widodo cabinets after initially serving as his first chief of staff, has openly described how he brought the military into many policy areas he handled. “What’s wrong if I ask the military to help if it has the capacity to do so? You in the West might think that’s wrong, but in Indonesia, in many cases the military can do things that civilians can’t” (interview, Canberra, June 9, 2016). Under Widodo, his approach led to an expanding web of military cooperation with civilian ministries, with the president’s consent.

In addition to the inclusion of military figures in cabinet, Indonesian presidents typically agree that there are red lines they cannot cross if they want to sustain their coalitional relationship with the military. We already noted that the maintenance of the territorial command structure is one such red line, and no post-2004 president has even considered questioning it.⁶ We also saw the importance of budgetary matters—the military expects a stable and gradual increase in its official budget and tolerance of its off-budget practices. Post-amendment presidents have guaranteed both. This does not mean that the military budget has increased disproportionally: official military expenditure in Indonesia remains below 1 percent of GDP, one of the lowest ratios in the region. But in US dollar terms, the budget has roughly quintupled between 2001 and 2021, giving officers enough opportunities for institutional development and patronage (Nugroho, Bainus, and Darwawan 2018). Similarly, the military’s off-budget practices remain politely ignored, despite a formal handover of its businesses to the Ministry of Defense in 2009.⁷ Outside the budgetary realm, the legal impunity of the armed forces is another red line. For instance, no high-ranking military officer has been jailed for human rights abuses committed under the New Order or subsequent administrations. While some officers stood trial in human rights courts in 2002 for the violence surrounding the East Timor referendum of 1999, and six of the eighteen defendants were initially convicted, all of the accused were acquitted on appeal (Cammack 2015). The 2003 trial on a 1984 massacre of Muslims in Jakarta ended with a similar outcome: all twelve defendants were acquitted on appeal. After that, only one more human rights trial against a military officer was held in 2022 (involving a 2014 case in Papua), with the accused also acquitted and critics arguing that the government had not seriously pursued the case.

With presidents respecting the red line of the military’s legal impunity to protect its participation in their coalitions, some officers involved in human rights abuses even made political comebacks many years after their actions. Wiranto, for instance, who was indicted by the UN over the East Timor carnage, became Widodo’s most senior security minister in 2016 (he had held the same position under Wahid from 1999 to 2000, but was dismissed by him over the accusations). Similarly, several officers aligned with Prabowo Subianto—and accused of kidnapping activists in 1998 under his direction—followed their former boss into government in 2019. Prabowo, appointed as defense minister by his two-time presidential election opponent Widodo, tapped Dadang Hendrayudha as his ministry’s director general for defense potential, and Yulius Selvanus as the head of the strategic defense installations body. Both had been convicted by a military tribunal in 1999, but after an appeal, they continued their military careers. Thus, Prabowo’s integration into the presidential coalition not only accommodated Widodo’s archrival and neutralized the threat of him becoming an anti-government agitator, but it also sent further signals to the military that it did not have to fear legal prosecution and could rest assured that its officers had opportunities to prosper under democratic rule. Having killed two birds with one stone, Widodo began his second term with a substantially broadened and consolidated coalition. Prospects of any pro-democracy breakthroughs, however, were also much reduced.

Managing the military as part of presidential coalitions, then, requires heads of state to hold their ground by deploying their appointment powers and constitutional privileges but also to make heavy concessions to sustain the military’s satisfaction with their rule. As in the case of other participants in coalitional presidentialism, this approach to the armed forces secures the government’s stability—yet it also underscores executive incapacity to move against the generals’ vested interests. In the next section, a detailed case study of Widodo’s early presidency illustrates how Indonesian presidents have used the military to solidify their political position and calibrate the internal balance of their coalitions. It also shows, however, that Widodo had to pay a significant price in return.

Widodo, the Generals, and 1965

Widodo entered office in 2014 with an acute awareness of his lack of personal military credentials. A former furniture entrepreneur and local politician, he had faced off in the elections with the experienced military hard-liner Prabowo. To compensate for the absence of a similar military biography, Widodo surrounded himself with a clique of retired officers who had fallen out with Prabowo and thus wanted to prevent his rise to the presidency. Luhut was the leader of this clique, but it had other powerful members. A.M. Hendropriyono, for instance, had been a senior general under Suharto but cultivated close ties with Megawati.⁸ His son-in-law was Andika Perkasa, who would later become military commander under Widodo. There were also Sutiyoso, the former Jakarta commander and governor, and Subagyo H.S., who had been army chief of staff in the final phase of the Suharto regime. During a television debate between Widodo and Prabowo in June 2014, the clique of retired military officers supporting Widodo sat as a bloc in the audience. “Look at us,” Sutiyoso said, pointing to the ex-generals around him, “aren’t we dashing? I’m sure Prabowo will be impressed when he sees us” (interview, Jakarta, June 9, 2014). Emerging victorious from the contest, Widodo appointed Luhut as his first chief of staff, Sutiyoso as intelligence chief (albeit only briefly), and Subagyo to the Presidential Advisory Council. In short, Widodo’s non-existing historical ties with the armed forces had led him to integrate military figures into his apparatus from the beginning of his presidential career.

Widodo had to turn to his military allies for help earlier than he had hoped. This was because he got entangled in a political conflict with the military’s main institutional rival, the police. Still finding his feet in the first few months in office, Widodo gave in to pressure from Megawati and nominated her former-adjutant-cum-confidant Budi Gunawan as the next chief of police in January 2015. But three days later, the KPK declared Gunawan a suspect in a corruption case, trapping Widodo in a dilemma: on the one hand, he had to show loyalty to Megawati and her ally; on the other hand, the fight against corruption had been a cornerstone of his campaign. Eventually, Widodo withdrew Gunawan’s nomination, named a replacement, and approved Gunawan’s appointment as deputy chief of police. While this appeared as an effective compromise, it infuriated Gunawan’s supporters in the police. Using his association with Megawati, and his new position as deputy chief, Gunawan became the head of an informal network of disgruntled officers in the police that the president could no longer rely on. The official police chief, Badrodin Haiti, was largely seen as a figurehead, with Gunawan’s patronage network entrenching itself in the police command units. In this situation, approaching the military for support was a natural choice for an Indonesian president. Since the split of the police from the armed forces in 1999, the two organizations have been involved in an ongoing competition over institutional authority, resources, and political influence (Baker 2013). Hence, once the police appeared to turn against Widodo, the president was forced to strengthen his ties with the other powerful security actor, and the military was happy to oblige.

To communicate its willingness to assist the president and take on the police in the Budi Gunawan case, the military sent subtle messages to the police and the public. For instance, it offered to second military investigators to the KPK to help the anti-corruption agency with the case against Gunawan, and it let it be known that the KPK had approached the armed forces to enforce subpoenas should internal police witnesses against Gunawan be unwilling to testify (Kemenhan 2015). Of course, these warning signs against the police came at a cost for Widodo. In June 2015, as the crisis was still ongoing, the president was given hints by the army that it expected the next military commander to be from its ranks instead of from the air force, whose turn it was if an informal post-Suharto tradition of rotating the commandership between the services was to be upheld. As the largest and most powerful of the services in the armed forces, the request of the army carried a particular weight that was difficult to ignore. A close Widodo aide recalled, “in that situation, with all that was going with the police, it would have been unwise to alienate the army. The army supported us. So it was decided to grant its wish, and the president appointed Gatot [Nurmantyo] as the military commander” in July 2015 (confidential interview, Canberra, December 15, 2015). This example demonstrates how presidents can use the balancing mechanisms inherent in coalitional presidentialism to reprimand and control a disloyal coalition member by turning to another for assistance. It also showcases, however, how such balancing forces the president into costly compromises.

Unsurprisingly, Gatot’s appointment was only the prelude to more substantive concessions the president was forced to grant to the military. Gatot represented the most conservative stream within the officer corps. Unlike the military commanders in the Yudhoyono period who had been careful not to provoke the president with political commentary, he was vocal in expressing his views to the elite and the media. Having received all of his training at home (in contrast to some colleagues with extensive records of international education), he believed in the distinctness of the Indonesian military and rejected notions that the armed forces had to professionalize in line with the examples set by their peers in Latin America. He was convinced that Indonesia was encircled by adversaries (Agastia 2016), with the West accused of trying to morally destroy the country’s youth and China of aiming to use the archipelago as a stepping stone for its power expansion. Above all, he claimed that Indonesia faced a continued threat from communism—despite the destruction of the PKI in 1965/66 and the failure of the left to revive some form of socialist politics after 1998. In Gatot’s eyes, the PKI used pro-democracy NGOs, environmental activists, and labor unions to stage a comeback in disguise. Evidently, Widodo’s promotion of Gatot in exchange for the military’s counterbalancing of the police had swept a myriad of long-suppressed conservative military views and demands to the surface, voiced by its new commander.

Gatot’s conservatism collided with progressive policy promises that Widodo had advanced during the 2014 campaign to attract the small but influential segment of liberal voters. This liberal segment had leaned toward Widodo not because of great enthusiasm for him but because he promised to block Prabowo’s path to the presidency. To bind such voters to him, Widodo included the handling of past human rights abuses in his campaign program. The reference to “past human rights abuses” was commonly understood as a promise to revisit the state’s interpretation of the 1965/66 massacres of suspected communists. Up to one million people were killed then, with the army driving the campaign in cooperation with Islamic and nationalist groups (Melvin 2018). Under Suharto, the killings were portrayed as a heroic act to save Indonesia from communism, and this narrative remained a main staple of the military, Islamic forces, and nationalist groups after 1998. But the democratic opening allowed victims and their relatives to demand justice. In their efforts, they received support from some pro-democracy NGOs—the segment that Widodo appealed to in the 2014 campaign. Thus, when he became president, there were widespread rumors that Widodo planned an apology for the killings, or at least planned to acknowledge the state’s responsibility for them. The rumors were fueled by the announcement of his attorney general on several occasions in 2015 that the government planned to address the issue (Laisina and Lesmana 2015). Plans for an international tribunal on the killings in Den Haag, organized by Indonesian and international experts, added further urgency for the government and created nervousness in the military.

The military’s apprehension increased exponentially when it learned that a symposium on the 1965 killings would be held in April 2016 by the National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas), a think tank linked to the Department of Defense. The governor of this institute was Agus Widjojo, a retired general whose father had been killed by the pro-communist coup plotters in 1965. Despite this traumatic experience, Widjojo was one of the most reformist military thinkers. He believed that Indonesia should emulate countries such as Cambodia, South Africa, and Germany in how they managed their past (Gumilang and Suriyanto 2017). These nations had held tribunals and truth and reconciliation processes—something the Indonesian military opposed. Worse still for the military, Widjojo indicated in interviews that his symposium had gained the president’s approval (Tempo 2016). However, Widjojo also suggested that Luhut was part of the initiative, too. Luhut, who later spoke at the seminar, was more conservative than Widjojo but shared the latter’s view that the nation needed closure. In his mind, the government should oversee a formal process of reconciliation and unearth some of the mass graves (Kuwado 2016a), “but after that, it must be over. We can’t go on like this forever. Let’s do this, and then we all move on” (interview, Jakarta, June 15, 2016). According to Luhut’s plan, the process should establish a number of victims much lower than the figures found in the international scholarly literature. Against this background, it appears that Widodo believed that the event was safe from possible accusations by the military that the president betrayed one of its main interests.

But the president’s confidence in his strategy was misplaced. The backlash from the active military leadership under Gatot—and from hard-line retired officers—was swift and harsh. Some retired officers held a counter-symposium in June 2016, at which speakers denounced the testimonials given by victims at Widjojo’s seminar (Aritonang 2016). Following this event, Widodo immediately backed down; he declared, at a military gathering, that he had never intended to issue an apology. Gatot, however, was not yet satisfied and continued to campaign against any revision of the state’s stance on 1965. In 2017, he stepped up his anti-communist rhetoric and ultimately ordered all military commands to organize public viewings of a discredited propaganda film on the events of 1965, which had been broadcast annually under the New Order but had been shelved soon after Suharto’s fall. Widodo, dropping any attempt to find a new approach to 1965, joined in the military’s chorus. In June 2017, he vowed that his government would clamp down on any “communist movement or thinking” still left in Indonesia (Kuwado 2016b), and in September, he attended one of Gatot’s screenings. The president’s turn-around was now complete: the process that the Widjojo event had intended to start was discontinued; there was no unearthing of mass graves; and the government chose to ignore the issue—just as Yudhoyono had for much of his two terms in office.

However, the story did not end there. As noted earlier, Indonesian presidents have significant appointment powers they can leverage to balance the armed forces. Widodo used his powers in this case, too: in December 2017, he dismissed Gatot and replaced him with Hadi Tjahjanto, a loyalist he had known since his days in Solo (Lowry 2017). Indeed, Gatot believed that his invitation to Widodo to watch the 1965 propaganda movie was the reason for this dismissal. It is likely that Widodo saw the invite as an act of intimidation and decided to send a signal that his readiness to compromise with the military had certain limits. But despite Gatot’s dismissal, Widodo did not renew the 1965 reconciliation initiative.⁹ The episode, then, highlighted the red lines on both sides of the coalitional presidentialism equation: Widodo needed the military as a counterweight to the police and was willing to give the armed forces concessions in return—but he was not prepared to accept an open show of defiance against him. The military, for its part, was ready to help the president in his conflict with the police—but expected that its red line regarding the 1965 issue would be respected. As the two stances moved dangerously toward a point of irreconcilability, the president abandoned his reconciliation project but re-established his authority by replacing the military commander. Subsequently, the equilibrium between the two sides—which marks the president’s relationship with other coalition partners as well—was reinstated again.

This chapter has demonstrated that Indonesian presidents position the military as a member of their coalitions—and that the officer corps views its role and power in the same way. The armed forces receive an informal quota in cabinet formations, filled with retired officers; negotiate with the president over budget and patronage issues; grant or withhold support to the government, depending on the concessions offered; balance themselves against other members of the coalition, whether they are parties or actors such as the police; and communicate red lines to the president, the crossing of which would mean the end of coalition membership. Presidents, for their part, can use powers similar to those they hold over parties and the legislature to discipline the armed forces and ensure at least basic support for their governments. Chief among them is the authority to appoint the military top brass, which presidents have used to pressure potentially disloyal generals or to fill key posts with loyalists they had groomed during years of service in their surroundings. They can also bring their budgetary powers to bear, granting the military increased allocations and allowing it to continue its long-standing practice of informal fundraising. The appointment and budgetary powers are at the heart of what many members of the officer corps view as their main institutional and personal interest; that is, the continuation of the material privileges the military had become used to in decades of authoritarian rule. The ideological concessions extracted from the president, such as ongoing commitment to fight the (long-defeated) threat of communism, arguably serve as ideational justifications for these welfare demands.

Despite its status as a member of presidential alliances, the military differs in important aspects from other civilian actors of coalitional presidentialism. Its monopoly on warfare instruments is the most important distinction, which the military uses to increase its weight in negotiations with the president and other political actors. Similarly, its territorial command structure gives it a nationwide outreach that few other actors have (including the parties). As a consequence, to fully grasp the presence of the Indonesian military in presidential coalitions, it is appropriate, and indeed necessary, to bring civil-military relations analysis of the country—which has a long history and central place in its political scholarship (Sundhaussen 1972; Laksmana 2019)—into our coalitional presidentialism studies. We have seen many of the themes highlighted in civil-military relations debates reoccurring in the examination of coalitional presidentialism practices: the president’s constant rebalancing of appeasement and confrontation strategies; presidential interest in both limiting and occasionally exploiting military intrusion into civilian affairs; and the observation of red lines drawn around institutional interests to prevent upheaval. These strategies, applied by presidents to deal specifically with the armed forces, are concurrently key to maintaining the stability of the overall coalition. Should these strategies fail, it is not only the civil-military relationship that is affected but the foundations of the presidential coalition as a whole.

In Indonesia, the outcome of the presidential-military coalition arrangement has been beneficial to both sides but has had a paralyzing effect on democratic reform. Unlike in Thailand and Myanmar, where the armed forces tend to operate outside of executive coalitions and thus often overthrow the governments they do not feel aligned with (Chambers 2021), the inclusion of Indonesia’s military into presidential power-sharing arrangements has secured its allegiance to the formally democratic system. Despite frequent speculation in Indonesian newspapers and seminars, no serious attempt has been made at a military coup since 1998—a fact that should not be taken for granted. Since the introduction of full presidentialism in 2004, the mechanisms through which generals are bound to the incumbent president have been institutionalized further. This has allowed presidents to rule without significant disturbances (to begin with, they have been able to complete their terms, in contrast to some of their executive counterparts in mainland Southeast Asia), and democracy has been sustained. But the accommodation of the military’s interests, and the expectation of presidents for the officer corps to assist them against their opponents in times of crisis, has helped to freeze Indonesian democracy at low to moderate levels. Under Widodo, the increasing concessions given to the military have even led to unmistakable signs of democratic decline, while the overall frame of nominal democracy remains intact (Repucci and Slipowitz 2020, 55). Consequently, presidential interactions with the military are comparable to those that presidents have developed with other actors—and they also produce a similar result.