President Prabowo Subianto is losing the trust of investors and his growth agenda risks being undone by a plunging currency.
The special forces commander-turned-politician has run a chaotic administration since taking office in 2024, promising free meals for millions of school children and undoing decades of spending discipline to chase growth.
But a battering from the global energy shock and a number of unorthodox decisions - from centralizing commodity exports under a sprawling sovereign fund that reports directly to Prabowo, to new jobs and growth mandates for the central bank - have rocked investor confidence.
Those moves have taken the sheen off what was, just a couple of years ago, an emerging market poster child; today, credit default swaps imply Southeast Asia's largest economy will lose its investment-grade credit rating.
The country's stock market is the world's weakest performer in 2026, down more than 42%. The rupiah is one of the hardest-hit currencies, too, and has become both a symptom and a source of trouble, as its fall starts to drive even more selling.
