In 2024, Prabowo Subianto won Indonesia’s presidency with the biggest mandate in the country’s history. Yet amid eroding public trust and wavering market confidence, Prabowo cannot afford to rely on his electoral mandate for the remainder of his term.
Prabowo took office in October 2024 with 96 million votes, though even that victory was not entirely his own making. Outgoing president Joko Widodo’s implicit backing was widely credited as decisive and ‘the X factor’ behind the result.
His public trust rating has fallen from 85.3 per cent at his October 2024 inauguration to 75.1 per cent by March 2026, but the reality has been more volatile than a simple decline suggests. After nationwide unrest in August 2025, a separate measure of his approval crashed to 58.9 per cent, then recovered to nearly 80 per cent by January 2026, boosted by cash and food handouts to more than 35 million households. By July 2026, his approval rating had fallen to just 51.1 per cent.
Prabowo’s mandate has been rented rather than earned, specifically by being bought back with handouts as opposed to good governance. Indonesia’s Free Nutritious Meal program (‘Makan Bergizi Gratis’, or MBG) is a clear example of this strategy. Prabowo said MBG has reached more than 60 million people — enough to ‘feed the entire population of South Africa every day’. Yet support for the program is ‘broad but shallow’.
