Prabowo Subianto: What to expect from Indonesia’s likely new president

Indonesia has seen many faces of Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto over his decades in the public eye – the cheshire grin that accompanies his recent viral dance moves, flashes of his temper in fervent orations and the humiliation when he was dismissed from the military in 1998.
Now, it appears the latest portrait of Prabowo will be the one to be hung in government offices across the country as Indonesia’s next president after he took a commanding lead in unofficial results from Wednesday’s election and claimed victory.
Long a polarising figure, the ex-special forces general’s presumed resounding victory is being met with a mixture of elation and anxiety across the world’s third-largest democracy.
After twice losing to Jokowi in 2014 and 2019, Prabowo, 72, has leaned into the deep popularity of Widodo-ism, even controversially naming the president’s son as his running mate in the election to rule the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.