Prabowo Subianto served as Indonesia's Minister of Defense from 2019 to 2024 (Reuters)

Retired Army Lieutenant General, Businessman and Minister of Defense (2019-2024). Due to his closeness to power throughout his military career, he entered politics in 2004 to achieve his dream of becoming president of the country.

Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikosumo co-founded the Gerindra Party in 2008, and has headed it since 2014. He failed in two attempts to reach the presidency in the 2014 and 2019 elections, and ran in his third attempt in the 2024 presidential elections within a coalition of 8 parties.

Birth and upbringing

Prabowo was born in Jakarta on October 17, 1951, the third of 4 siblings (two sons and two daughters) born to an influential family with a long-standing political standing.

His father, Soimitru Gogohadikosumo, was a prominent economist and politician, who held several ministerial positions under Presidents Ahmed Soekarno and Mohamed Suharto. He served as Minister of Trade and Industry for the period (1950-1951), Minister of Finance for the periods (1952-1953) and (1955-1956), Minister of Commerce for the period (1968-1973), and Minister of Research for the period (1973-1978).

His mother, Dora Marie Siregar, was a housewife who studied surgical nursing in the Netherlands, while his grandfather, Marjono Jojohadikosumo, was the founder of Bank Negara Indonesia and the first chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council, which was dissolved in 2003.

He was named "Prabow Subianto" after his uncle, who was killed in battle against the Japanese in Tangerang during the Indonesian National Revolution.

Prabowo Subianto called in his election campaign for balance in Indonesia's foreign relations (French)

Study and scientific training

Prabowo spent most of his childhood abroad, due to his father's positions opposing the rule of Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia after its independence. Therefore, Prabowo is fluent in French, German, English, and Dutch.

Prabowo studied primary school in Hong Kong, middle school at the Victoria Institute in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, in (1962-1963) and the Zurich International School in Zurich, Switzerland, in (1963-1964). He graduated from high school from the American School in London, England, in 1969.

After graduating from high school, he joined the Magelang Military Academy (Akmel) in 1969, and graduated in 1974. Those close to him say that the person whom Prabowo was most influenced by and who he considers his role model is the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk.

In 1983 he married Siti Hidayati Hariyadi, Suharto's second daughter, known as "Titik" Suharto, but they divorced shortly after her father's regime was overthrown. He has his only son, Rajuu Hideprasetyo Gojohadikosumo, nicknamed "Dedet", a fashion designer based in Paris.

Rich military history

After graduating from the military academy in 1974, he served in the army for 28 years. He participated in a military mission to East Timor in 1976 to suppress the separatist movement there.

Prabowo became commander of the Airborne Infantry Battalion of the Army's Strategic Reserve Command (COSTRAD) in 1987 after completing the Special Forces Officers' Course at Fort Benning in the United States.

He returned to the Army Special Forces in 1993 to command a unit running covert operations, eventually becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Special Forces (COPASSUS) in 1996.

In March 1998, Prabowo was appointed Commander of Costarad, a position previously held by former President Suharto before assuming the presidency in 1965.

After Suharto stepped down as president in May 1998 and the beginning of the new multi-party and democratic regime, Prabowo assumed leadership of the Command and Staff College in Bandung, and shortly thereafter was discharged from the army after being accused of involvement in the kidnapping of student activists in 1998 and human rights violations. Humans in Papua and East Timor.

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and his deputy Guberin (Al Jazeera)

His discharge from military service also came after he ordered his forces to besiege the presidential palace during the era of Yusuf Habibie, who succeeded Suharto in ruling the country, which prompted the Officers’ Honor Council to try him before a military court, and his dismissal from the army on July 14, 1998 after he was convicted of 7 charges.

Following his dismissal, he went to reside in self-imposed exile in Jordan, and from there to European countries, then returned to Indonesia in 2001, and followed in the footsteps of his younger brother, businessman Hashim Jojohadikosumo, who is considered one of the richest businessmen in Indonesia, and has assets all over the world from Indonesia to... Europe and North America.

Prabowo has established several companies operating in the energy, palm oil, coal, gas, mining, agriculture, and fishing industries.

The United States imposed a travel ban on him and a group of Special Forces Command, due to accusations of human rights violations against the people of East Timor. This ban continued until 2022, when it was actually lifted so that Prabowo could visit the United States in his capacity as Minister of Defense of Indonesia.

Battles to gain power

Prabowo broke into the world of politics and party life in 2004 by joining the Golkar Party (the party of former President Suharto), and since then the former military man has been fighting to win the presidential battle. He has made a series of attempts to reach power through presidential elections, the most important of which are:

  • He failed in the internal elections of the Golkar Party to choose the party's candidate for the presidential elections in 2004. He received the lowest number of votes with only 39 votes from the votes of the party conference.

  • He co-founded the "Girindra" party in 2008, and became its president in 2014.

  • He ran in the 2009 elections for vice president with the head of the National Struggle Party, Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of Ahmed Soekarno, the first president of Indonesia, but they lost the elections.

  • In the 2014 elections, Prabowo lost to Joko Widodo (Jokowi), and filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court alleging "widespread and systematic" fraud in the elections, but the lawsuit was rejected.

  • He ran again for president in the 2019 elections, and his supporters took to the city streets to protest the election result, which turned violent. He again filed a lawsuit in court alleging fraud, but his claim was rejected again. Following the hotly contested elections, Jokowi offered Prabowo the position of Defense Minister, and the latter accepted the offer, and his party joined the government coalition.

  • Prabowo made his third attempt to reach the presidency as a candidate for the position of vice president alongside Gebran Rakabuming Raka (President Jokowi's eldest son, whose second term ends in October 2024). They raised their election campaign slogan, "Together we move towards Golden Indonesia 2045." One of the most prominent things he announced in his election campaign was his call to rebalance Indonesia's foreign relations, by strengthening its relations with China and India instead of the West.

Source: websites