Indonesia election 2024: who are the 3 candidates vying to lead the world’s third largest democracy?

Polls show Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto in the lead but his two rivals have a realistic chance of keeping him below 50 per cent for a run-off election

Prabowo and Ganjar Pranowo have promised to continue President Joko Widodo’s popular agenda, while Anies Baswedan has promised a change from the status quo

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Indonesia’s presidential candidates, from left, Ganjar Pranowo, Prabowo Subianto and Anies Baswedan after the first presidential candidates’ debate in Jakarta on December 12, 2023. Photo: AP

Published: 11:01am, 13 Feb 2024Updated: 11:53am, 13 Feb 2024

On Wednesday, Indonesians from across the archipelago nation will head to the polls for a general election that will see ballots cast for officials at all levels of government. But all eyes are on the three candidates running to become the country’s next president, following outgoing leader Joko Widodo’s 10 years of highly popular leadership.

Although surveys show Prabowo Subianto has a virtually insurmountable lead in the polls, his two rivals have a realistic chance of keeping him below 50 per cent, which would result in a run-off election between the first and second place finishers on June 26. This means the question of who may become Indonesia’s eighth president is still very much an open one.

Here’s an in-depth look at all three candidates and their political journeys up to their climactic showdown at the polls.

The veteran: Prabowo Subianto

Polls indicate that the third time’s the charm for Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, who unsuccessfully sought the presidency in 2014 and 2019. In both of those contests, Prabowo fought bitter campaigns against President Widodo but – in an illustration of politics making strange bedfellows – this year he is running with his former rival’s tacit support and Widodo’s son, Gibran Raka Rakabuming, as his vice-presidential running mate.

If Prabowo wins the presidency on Wednesday, it will be the culmination of a military and political career spent fighting to influence the future of his country. After graduating from the Indonesian Military Academy in 1970, Prabowo served in the Special Forces (Kopassus) before being tapped to lead the Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) in 1998.

That same year also saw the economic and political crisis that led Prabowo’s father-in-law at the time, President Suharto, to resign after 32 years of dictatorship. Around the time of the riots that precipitated Suharto’s ouster, troops under Prabowo’s command kidnapped and tortured at least nine democracy activists. Prabowo acknowledged responsibility for the kidnappings and was dishonourably discharged from the military.