Academia
President Prabowo Subianto delivers a statement on March 9, 2026, at his private residence in Hambalang village, Bogor, West Java. (Courtesy of Presidential Secretariat Press Bureau/Muchlis Jr)
For most of his first two years in office, President Prabowo Subianto enjoyed a honeymoon that simply refused to end. Survey after survey showed him with approval numbers most world leaders can only dream of. That period has now ended. It was a long and genuinely good run, but the latest data from Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) confirm that political reality has caught up with him.Prabowo's popularity was not just a residual effect of his 2024 election win. Social spending, above all the free nutritious meal program launched in January 2025, helped extend an unusually long stretch of goodwill. SMRC recorded his approval at 81.2 percent as late as November 2025, and he held territory in the 70s to 80s range through most of that year: a level that his predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo did not even reach until deep into his second term, when SMRC clocked his highest-ever rating at 81.7 percent in May 2023.
By contrast, Jokowi's first term began at a similar starting point but collapsed early: Indikator data show his approval fell from 62 percent at inauguration to just 41 percent shortly after, following a costly fuel price hike. Prabowo has not suffered anything like that early crash. But no honeymoon lasts forever, and the July 2026 numbers simply show democratic normalcy reasserting itself.
