JAKARTA: If there is one thing about 74-year-old Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto that is hard to deny, it is that he is very persistent.He made four unsuccessful bids to be president or vice-president from 2004 to 2019 - losing twice in 2014 and 2019 to Joko Widodo in presidential elections - but Prabowo never gave up. He finally succeeded in the 2024 presidential election and became Indonesia’s eighth president. So, when three former leaders of the national nutrition agency who ran Prabowo’s flagship free nutritious meal programme were arrested and named graft suspects by the attorney general's office (AGO) on Wednesday (Jun 3), just a day after they were sacked, would this stop him from continuing the US$15 billion-a-year programme? No. Rather, this is Prabowo’s chance to improve his ambitious programme, which aims to feed at least 82.9 million children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, to prevent malnutrition and stunting, so Indonesia can become a developed nation. Beyond that, a larger question is whether the episode - stinging as it is - could have some bearing on how he and his inner circle of close advisers oversee key policies. THE SHOW MUST GO ONPrabowo has launched various ambitious programmes since he came to power at the end of October 2024. These include a 400 trillion rupiah (US$22.2 billion) Red-White village cooperative to help rural communities and a free health check programme to prevent people from falling ill.But it is the free nutritious meal programme that is arguably his signature policy - having promoted it since he began campaigning for the presidency in 2023. It is also the most talked about one as it has been linked to food poisoning cases affecting at least 33,000 children as of April, according to Network for Education Watch, a non-governmental organisation.Analysts have also raised concerns about the scale and cost of the scheme, given that Indonesia’s economy is facing pressure from a historically weak rupiah that has hit 18,000 rupiah per US dollar. The high cost of the programme may also challenge the 3 per cent fiscal deficit threshold relative to gross domestic product (GDP). In 2025, the deficit was 2.92 per cent of the GDP. The government originally earmarked a whopping 335 trillion rupiah to run the programme for this year alone.But it announced in March that it would cut back delivery from six days a week to five in response to price pressures from the Middle East war, and as of end of May, this year’s budget has been cut to 268 trillion rupiah.Prabowo had previously brushed off concerns over the programme, saying that food poisoning cases are just a minority. Of late though, he has acknowledged that his signature project "comes with many problems" and pledged to “put things in order”.