Personalist Politics Pave the Way for Indonesia's Authoritarian Revival

Indonesia’s democratic backsliding under President Prabowo Subianto stems from a long-standing pattern of personalistic political parties, which prioritise loyalty to individual leaders over programmatic policy and institutional accountability — weakening the checks that would otherwise constrain executive power. This trend, evident under former presidents Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo and now intensified by Prabowo’s more overt militarism, co-optation of rival parties and reliance on extra-party institutions, can only be reversed through genuine party institutionalisation and electoral reform that reward internal democracy over patronage networks.