Imagine yourself living under colonial occupation. You are a young native scholar, formally educated, currently enrolled in higher education. Filled with an undying wish for independence, you organize with like-minded peers.

Your country — or rather colony — is a vast archipelago, home to thousands of ethnicities and local languages. You are a native of its most populated island. At school, you speak the colonial language; at home, your family still calls you by your childhood nickname in your mother tongue.

Then you joined youth organizations to champion your people’s right to freedom. This year, you attend the annual meeting as a representative of your island’s faction, Jong Java. Like your peers from across the archipelago, you speak the language of the colonial powers, because it is the one you have used and been taught your whole life. Your teachers tell you that it is the pathway to intellectual advancement.

Then comes the decision: this meeting will be the moment you set yourselves apart from the colonial administration. A defined nation that represents the unified will and demands of the natives.

Together, you settle on a name: Indonesia. Easy enough. You settle on an identity: Indonesian. Pretty straightforward. But the lingering question remains: how can you truly set yourself apart from the colonizer if you still speak their language?

How does one choose the most representative language of a very diverse set of people?

Your native language, Javanese, is spoken by millions, so surely that is the most rational choice to mobilize a large mass. But Dutch, your colonizer’s language, is practically native to the educated youth sitting around the table. If you want to progress quickly, it is best to stick with it.

Instead, you go a different route. You choose a lingua franca native only to a minority group from the archipelago’s westernmost islands: Malay, or what you and the rest of your peers now call Bahasa Indonesia (the Indonesian language).

This is the story of the Sumpah Pemuda (Youth Pledge), known in Indonesia as the day the Indonesian “nation” was born. Though independence would arrive only 17 years later, the idea of a unified “Indonesia” had already been planted.

Today, Indonesia is one of the very few countries in the world that has adopted a national language that was neither the mother tongue of the plurality nor the language of the colonial occupier.

Perhaps in a bit of irony, this edition of The Reformist will talk about the legacy of the Indonesian language… in English. In commemoration of the 98th anniversary of the Youth Pledge this 28 October, we look back over the past century to unpack the history of the Indonesian language, from its first formal recognition in the congress to its nationwide adoption after independence.

The country’s founding fathers could have chosen to adopt a language already native to many. Instead, they chose idealism: a neutral language to achieve their goal of a united nation, not dominated by any single group.

The case for choosing Malay

The First Youth Congress, held in 1926, was conducted primarily in Dutch, but even then a growing consensus emerged to adopt Malay as a unifying language. Among its leading participants was Muhammad Yamin, who later helped draft the preamble of the Indonesian constitution and served as Information Minister under President Sukarno.

At the congress, Yamin weighed two options: Javanese and Malay. The former because it was spoken by a plurality of natives, but remained optimistic that the latter was the more promising choice for unity. “Malay will gradually become the language of social intercourse and the language of unity,” Yamin said.

The urge to use Malay did not come out of nowhere. The language already had some standing as the go-to vernacular for the inhabitants and visitors of the archipelago for centuries before the pledge.

During the Dutch East India Company (VOC) period, Dutch was hardly used, and by 1940, it was only spoken by a mere two percent of the entire archipelago. Many regions relied on Low Malay as the language of trade. Low Malay, also called Bazaar Malay or Melayu Pasar, is generally believed to have been a pidgin shaped by contact among Malay, Chinese, Indian, Arab, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, and English traders.

As the Dutch cemented their standing in the archipelago, the Malay language grew with it. Alongside Low Malay ran High Malay, the historical Riau-Johor standard of literature, the Malay courts, and Islamic religious life, which the colonial government promoted.

By the early 20th century, political organizations like Sarekat Islam and the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) already used Malay as their main language of communication. They did so under the same pretext the Youth Pledge’s youth shared: In an archipelago with over 200 regional languages, a lingua franca was the most effective tool for political education.

The Youth Pledge therefore carried more of a symbolic weight. According to an author, Keith Foulcher, it was most likely in this pledge that the term Bahasa Indonesia was first used publicly.

Perhaps the most defining aspect of the Youth Pledge for the Indonesian language is its prose. The first two lines of the pledge are firm declarations:

We, sons and daughters of Indonesia, declare that we have one homeland, the land of Indonesia.

We, sons and daughters of Indonesia, declare that we are one nation, the Indonesian nation.

Then, the third line changes the verb:

We, sons and daughters of Indonesia, uphold the language of unity, the Indonesian language.

The delegates explicitly declared an Indonesian nation and homeland. Meanwhile, the line on language reads more like an action to be taken than a firm declaration, largely because many people in the congress were still unaccustomed to the language.

This uncomfortable shift in vernacular was a lived reality for many nationalist figures in the Dutch East Indies. Yet, they persisted.

Javanese nationalist figure Sitti Soendari best embodies this. At the Youth Pledge, she spoke only Dutch because “she did not understand Indonesian.” Just two months later she addressed a women’s congress in full Indonesian, prefacing her speech:

In 1928, a promise was all that the youth could offer. Outside their political bubble lay the watchful Dutch colonial administration. Dutch observers at the congress still called the language Malay, with “Indonesian” in quotation marks, and noted in contempt that the chair — Soegondo Djojopoespito, a Javanese student and later a cabinet minister under Sukarno — could hardly speak it. Then came the Japanese.

The unlikely push under Japanese occupation

As controversial as it may sound, Japan’s occupation in Indonesia was perhaps a catalyst for the language adoption alongside the persistent effort of nationalist movements that had birthed the Indonesian language. Under Japanese rule, the Indonesian language, then merely Malay under a different name, was forced to mature quickly.

After the Japanese took over Indonesia in 1942, the new regime prohibited the use of Dutch, with the expectation that they would eventually start to adopt Japanese after the war. In the short term, the “newly” established Indonesian became the practical choice, given its status as a lingua franca.

Nationwide, the government implemented the language from top to bottom. School teachers to government officials — irrespective of rank — were mandated to switch from Dutch to Indonesian.

On 20 October 1942, the occupying Japanese government formed the Indonesian Language Commission (KBI). Its primary goal was to develop the language from Malay into its own standalone language, reflecting the cultural and social context of the archipelago.

Local elites cleverly used this opportunity to develop, modernize, and institutionalize the Indonesian language. Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (STA), best known today as a writer, was a member of the committee. In a historical account by his daughter Tamalia Alisjahbana during a talk at Georgetown University SFS Asia Pacific, STA and the KBI refined grammar structures and added new vocabulary by pooling words from different segments of society. The military, merchants, teachers, and other professionals were consulted to contribute words that were then included in the new language.

Indonesian author Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)

Different ethnicities and racial groups like the Javanese, Minangkabau, Chinese, and Arab all partook in this modernization program. By the time Indonesia declared independence in 1945, there wasn’t a need to meticulously develop this new language, as its foundations had already been planted a few years prior.

According to STA’s own reflection, “the Japanese decision to develop Indonesian as quickly as possible forced every leader to abandon Dutch and caused a period of ‘forced growth.’” He added that by the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, the committee had produced about 7,000 new official terms.

But even after the Japanese conceded the war and Indonesia declared independence, the Indonesian language was only native to roughly 5 percent of the entire population. The path forward, therefore, was still unclear. What policies and nation-building strategies took the language from being native to only 5 percent of the population at independence to being spoken by 98 percent of Indonesia in 2022?

The double-edged language policy

Language as education

At the policy level, education became the most important vehicle for ensuring the mass implementation of the Indonesian language. The 1947 Lesson Plan — the first of its kind after independence — officially replaced Dutch with Indonesian in educational materials and instruction, playing an essential role in expanding Indonesian comprehension and use after independence.

In 1984, the government under President Suharto launched a national literacy campaign, the Six-Year Compulsory Education Program. As an initiative to increase primary school enrollment, the program enforced a strict directive to use Indonesian in state offices, public spaces, and commercial signage to phase out both colonial relics and regional dialects. Indonesian replaced local languages as the primary mode of teaching, with the exception of local vernacular used informally to explain concepts until the third or fourth year of primary education.

As a result, enrollment and literacy rates skyrocketed. In 1945, only 21 percent of all elementary school-age Indonesians were enrolled in school; this increased to virtually 100 percent by 1982 for the first grade. Literacy rates went from 5 percent of the population in 1945 to almost 70 percent just 35 years later.

The dissemination of mass media also contributed to the language’s high uptake. Between 1918–1925, the number of native newspapers grew from 40 to 200, mostly in Malay. That media landscape only gained relevance during the independence movement, when nationalist newspapers and writers adopted Indonesian as a political language.

A vast majority of radio stations, television networks, and print news and magazines were published in Indonesian, allowing those across the country to contribute to a national conversation in a shared language.

Language as a consolidation of power

But as much as language is a source of unity and a major vessel for mass education, language is also a weapon of power. In the early days of Indonesia’s nation-building, the government’s push for unity also came at a cost. Under Sukarno, the Youth Pledge was altered to fit his political agenda. Under Suharto, the pursuit of a unified Indonesian identity introduced the controversial decision to suppress other language groups and practices.

At the 30th anniversary of the Youth Pledge in 1958, President Sukarno embraced a reworded version of the third line. Instead of a call to action, the line now reads “We, sons and daughters of Indonesia, speak one language, the Indonesian language.” A firm declaration akin to the two other lines in the Youth Pledge.

Sukarno galvanized the Youth Pledge in his favor, calling his opponents traitors to the Indonesian nation. Speaking one language became code for loyalty. If the pledge said all Indonesians shared a tongue, then rejecting centralized rule could be framed as rejecting the nation itself.

This occurred during a period of great domestic turbulence. In the 1950s and 1960s, Indonesia faced separatist movements by figures from non-Java islands, driven by growing disenfranchisement with Sukarno’s centralized rule.

Propaganda like the poster below packaged the language as a patriotic duty, with speaking Indonesian standing in for resisting the colonizer.

A 1960 Sukarno-era propaganda poster with the line “one nation, one homeland, one language” alongside a fist striking an imperialist

Only after the New Order regime replaced Sukarno did the original script return. Suharto did this to distance his administration from the provocative use of the Youth Pledge under Sukarno’s rule.

Yet, under Suharto’s New Order, Indonesia’s nation-building mandate continued to wield significant strength through language control. Fearing ethnic fractionalization, Suharto signed Presidential Instruction No. 14/1967, which accelerated the forced assimilation of Chinese Indonesians by restricting public expressions of Chinese religion, beliefs, and traditions in Indonesia. This included an effective ban on Chinese-language publications and the public use of Chinese characters (these restrictions were lifted in 2000).

The government justified the erasure directive under the guise of combating threats of communism and addressing the so-called Chinese problem of integrating the ethnically Chinese minority group into an Indonesian nation-building narrative. The campaign largely achieved its goal, at the expense of alienating a minority group and trading one language for another.

Indonesian is still the main mode of communication among Chinese Indonesians despite attempts in recent years to offer more Chinese language learning in schools. One study found that only 9 percent of young Jakartan Chinese Indonesians maintain the use of Chinese, Teochew, or Hokkien in the family, with an English-Indonesian mix being a more frequently used second language.

Indonesian also became the language of economic opportunity as a result of these top-down national language policies, which then reinforced a bottom-up incentive for individuals to adopt and encourage using Indonesian to be competitive in the job market. Urban communities bring together individuals across the country of different ethnic backgrounds, and the lingua franca is expectedly filled by Indonesian.

“People applying for jobs in Makassar, for instance, will be tested on their proficiency in English or Indonesian. And, naturally, local languages ​​are considered unimportant,” wrote journalist Eko Rusdianto for online publication Historia about the endangerment of regional languages. Although Indonesia has more than 700 regional languages, some 527 of them are endangered, while at least 12 have gone extinct, according to the language database Ethnologue.

The language centralization, therefore, came at a potential cultural erasure cost. It is a challenging tradeoff leaders must make to shape a national identity. Whose voices do you protect, and whose do you serve?

A nuanced legacy

Nearly a century later, the legacy of the Youth Pledge offers some interesting nation-building lessons that have served as case studies for linguists and political scientists alike. The country’s mission to develop a national identity rallied around a shared language, while simultaneously integrating Indonesian into education and public life to increase uptake, has largely been viewed as a success by scholars and policymakers, despite its complicated legacy with minority groups.

But there’s still some room for growth in a globalized world. A 2009 study from the University of Rochester compared Indonesia’s language policy to those of Malaysia and the Philippines. It argued that Indonesian fulfilled three “symbolic” functions in language planning more successfully than its peers, including: 1) unifying a larger speech community in spite of dialect differences (offering a shared language across more than 300 ethnic groups); 2) separating the language from others; and 3) bestowing prestige on those in the community who have developed the language (inherited from its centuries-old Malay origins).

Overlaying these functions of a national language is also a “participatory” function. It means the capacity for a speech community to use its native tongue in international discourse, trade, or higher education without relying on a foreign or colonial lingua franca. This is especially relevant in a globalized world.

For Indonesian, it is also an area that lags behind the success of the language’s other functions of unity and identity. Despite the widespread use of Indonesian in the country and among the diaspora, English has become the default secondary language in Indonesia’s urban centers and business environments. English-medium instruction is offered at the secondary and tertiary education levels, with the understanding that English is the lingua franca in global forums and will make Indonesians competitive globally.

To infinity and beyond

Granted, reforming the global lingua franca is beyond any single country’s nationalism-building scope. But as Indonesia has grown its global relevance over the past several decades, Indonesian has gained a more global recognition. In 2023, UNESCO designated it as one of 10 official languages used in the United Nations General Assembly. As of 2025, 61 countries have sought to adopt Indonesian classes in their classrooms.

When thinking about the future of the language’s policy, and considering the 100th year of the Youth Pledge in two years’ time, it is worth celebrating the wins of this national project and recognizing that this pride can grow further on a global stage.

In 1928, the delegates at the Youth Pledge were deliberate not to make the Indonesian language a firm declaration and instead a collective goal that every Indonesian must make to acquire and grow the language. As Indonesians reflect back on the Youth Pledge, it is worth seeing it not just as a remnant of the past, but as an active call to keep using the language and carry it further than the founding fathers could have imagined.

As we commemorate the 98th anniversary of the Youth Pledge, we’d like to hear from our readers: what’s your reflection on the language we perhaps have been taking for granted?

Subscribe and leave a comment on our Substack: thereformist.id

Credits:

• Writers, researchers: Clara M. Fong, Rayhan Kalevi

• Editors: Nea Ningtyas, Nathaniel Rayestu

When Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) announced its supposed plan to strip Indonesia of its Emerging Market status — plunging it straight down two tiers into Standalone Market territory — the government reacted with its usual cocktail of scapegoating and wounded national pride. President Prabowo even said in a cabinet meeting: “We keep getting intimidated. MSCI is trying to frighten us, but I told them, ‘Indonesia is not afraid of anyone!’”

Back in January of this year, MSCI put Indonesia on notice, citing glaring structural failures: opaque shareholding structures (no thanks to Indonesia’s weak beneficial ownership regime) and questionable free-float figures that have made Indonesian stocks prone to coordinated market manipulation (colloquially known in Indonesian as “goreng saham,” or stock-frying).

We wrote about it here:

But in case this is all news to you, here’s a quick recap of what has happened with MSCI in the year 2026:

• On 27 January 2026, MSCI froze certain index changes affecting Indonesian stocks and warned of possible reclassification to Frontier Market status.

• On 23 June 2026, MSCI retained Indonesia’s Emerging Market status but reiterated its concerns and demand for sustained improvements.

• On 15 October 2026, MSCI proposed a more severe move: reclassifying Indonesia to Standalone Market status, citing ongoing market dysfunction and inadequate evidence of enforcement.

What’s at stake? Well, Indonesia’s market participants have until 30 April 2027 — about six months from now — to submit their feedback, which MSCI will use to make its final decision by 30 June 2027. Worst-case scenario: Indonesia is downgraded to a Standalone Market and removed from emerging market indices, almost guaranteed to trigger billions of dollars in share sales by index-tracking funds and make it harder to attract foreign investment. If that happens, we’ll look back at the stock market crash today like it was the good ol’ days.

In a flurry of damage control in January, Jakarta had the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) leadership step down, lowered the investor ownership disclosure threshold to 1 percent, and raised free float requirements from 7.5 to 15 percent. Officials breathed a sigh of relief, assuming the bureaucratic sacrifice would appease the ratings arbiters.

But it did not. Earlier this month, MSCI reviewed the landscape and delivered the hammer blow: Indonesia had done far less than enough.

The gov’t misunderstands global capital infrastructure

Predictably, the political elite defaulted to deflection. President Prabowo Subianto publicly framed the decision as an act of foreign intimidation, declaring that Indonesia will not be bullied by index providers. Former Trade Minister Muhammad Lutfi, close to the administration, went a step further by trotting out familiar conspiratorial whispers, pointing fingers at Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds, GIC and Temasek, as the ones pulling strings behind the scenes. Both have denied the allegation, though we think they shouldn’t have, since Lutfi offered no evidence to back up his claim.

Suggesting that MSCI is running a geopolitical hit squad against Indonesia exposes how deeply the Indonesian government either fundamentally misunderstands how global capital infrastructure works or denies its own failures. MSCI does not manage money, sell equities, or run sovereign wealth funds by itself. They build benchmark indexes, such as the ubiquitous MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which trillions of dollars in global pension funds, sovereign funds, and passive exchange-traded funds (ETFs) track to the letter.

Passive funds simply do not have the luxury of ideological discretion. When major fund managers such as BlackRock or Vanguard offer ETFs tracking MSCI’s Emerging Market indices, to their clients, they commit to keeping their portfolios closely aligned with those benchmarks. If Indonesia is removed from the indices, those funds would have to rebalance their holdings, creating inevitable pressure to sell regardless of what the Indonesian government says about its more-than-optimistic economic prospects.

Is MSCI right to doubt Indonesia?

Strip away the political theater, the core question remains: are MSCI’s diagnostics correct?

We think so, yes. Unfortunately.

Critics argue that MSCI is being overly harsh, pointing to peer analysis suggesting the two-step downgrade is disproportionate. And there is a legitimate argument to be made there. After all, MSCI is a private institution with power so great that it can almost dictate billions of dollars in investment flows. But even if it is, the government’s protest misses the point entirely. The issues MSCI is concerned about are hardly imaginary. Many — including perhaps some of The Reformist readers here — may be among the domestic retail investors who have complained about the same problems for years.

As the saying goes, two things can be right and contradict each other all at once.

Would it be against Indonesia’s national interest to eradicate coordinated stock manipulation? Obviously not. Protecting ordinary citizens from pump-and-dump schemes run by well-connected syndicates is a duty of a functioning regulator.

Would it be a blow to our sovereignty if the ultimate beneficial owners of publicly listed corporations were transparently disclosed to the public? Of course not. Knowing who actually controls a listed company helps regulators track money laundering, prevents conflict-of-interest abuses, and brings integrity to corporate governance.

Last week, OJK announced a 2.1-trillion rupiah fine against parties involved in violations related to three popular stocks — $DSSA, $BREN, and $CUAN — after uncovering systematic share-price manipulation and concealed identities in share allocation, including parties affiliated with controlling stakeholders.

Should we accuse OJK of being part of the foreign intimidation, too, then? We guess not.

Stop confusing criticism with attack

This chain of events with MSCI raises an inconvenient question: who actually benefits from keeping Indonesia’s stock market opaque? Haven’t we known all along that concentrated ownership and weak enforcement create opportunities for powerful insiders to profit at the expense of ordinary investors who wish to strike luck after setting aside what is left of their abysmal minimum-wage salaries?

These, unfortunately, are not technical problems that we can solve by issuing new rules or making announcements only. What are market regulators for if they can’t hold the participants accountable?

Indonesia’s national interest is not measured by how loudly the government defends a stock market that even OJK has struggled to regulate. The fact that reform is on the horizon only after MSCI makes these tough bargains suggests it is unfortunately necessary. What’s keeping the government from pulling the rug on these ‘bad’ investors and owners all this time when MSCI wasn’t breathing down their neck?

Right?

The possible demotion to Standalone Markets status should serve as a long-overdue reckoning. Sacking regulators and tweaking disclosure percentages while leaving the underlying mechanics of market manipulation untouched was always going to fail. Global capital does not respond to political posturing. It responds to rule of law, clarity, and trust.

Instead of retreating into defensive nationalism and manufacturing conspiracies about foreign hostility, the government should heed the critique’s substance. The path back to international credibility lies not in railing against the mirror, but in reforming how our markets operate.

Good luck to all of us.

On 28 October, Indonesians will commemorate the iconic Youth Pledge (“Sumpah Pemuda”). The soon-to-be 98-year-old pledge was nothing short of miraculous; a beacon of hope born under colonial oppression.

In 1928, Dutch East Indies intelligence watched youth groups like a hawk, suspecting every move as subversive to colonial power. At the time, the Dutch imposed the “Vergader Verbond,” an oppressive policy that banned any meeting of three or more people without a permit. But the groups tricked officials into letting them organize the Second Youth Congress that birthed Sumpah Pemuda.

Under the threat of a colonizer increasingly fearing revolution, youth from Jong Java, Jong Sumatranen Bond, Jong Celebes, and many other groups consolidated their dream of an independent, united country: one motherland, Indonesia; one nation, Indonesia; And one language: Bahasa Indonesia.

Our next volume on the Indonesian language

Consider the sheer scale of this linguistic journey: from just around 5 percent of the now-Indonesian population speaking Malay, to near-ubiquitous national adoption of the standardized Malay variant we now call Indonesian. That’s across hundreds of distinct ethnic groups and native languages! This remarkable linguistic convergence bridged profound cultural divides and laid the bedrock for a shared civic identity that transcends regional boundaries.

This triumph was not historical luck. The bold promise made during the 1928 Sumpah Pemuda was followed through by a rigorous series of institutional and educational reforms over the decades. Today, Indonesia stands proudly as a global exception, one of the very few post-colonial countries (alongside Pakistan) where the national language is neither the language of the largest ethnic group nor the former colonial power. The volume explores how this incredible linguistic story came to be, the policy mechanics behind its success, and what it means for our modern republic as we navigate new eras of communication.

Be sure to look forward to this piece coming next week!

On another note: Join Kompas’ Idea Festival and get their Sumpah Pemuda special edition

In addition to our own special volume, our friends at Harian Kompas are marking Sumpah Pemuda with a question worth sitting with: Does the Indonesia we live in today look like the one we hoped for?

Inspired by the audacity of the 1928 youth, Kompas’ Sumpah Pemuda edition challenges the narrative of despondency, however understandable, among today’s youth as the nation grapples with bad governance, climate disasters, economic anxieties, rising cost of living, and the threat of disappearing freedom of expression.

Like the youth who dared to dream of an independent, united Indonesia despite oppressive colonial power, the Kompas special edition is a space to consolidate anxieties, experiences, and aspirations for Indonesia’s future, hopeful amid today’s maladies.

The edition features 28 opinions from experts, academics, public figures, government officials, and activists.

Kompas also takes those ideas off the page and into a room where readers, policymakers, academics, and community organizers argue them out as equals in a day-long festival “Pasar Gagasan” dubbed “Indonesia, Besok” (Indonesia, Tomorrow).

Pre-orders close on 27 October 2026, so get yours through our link:

Pre-order

Your ticket gets you into interactive Q&A sessions with Khalisah Khalid, Anies Baswedan, Hilmar Farid, Teuku Riefky, and Herman N. Suparman. There will also be an exhibition of opinion illustrations and a short-story exhibition. The ideas gathered over the day are written up as the “Indonesia, Besok” notes and handed directly to policymakers.

• When: 28 October 2026, 09.00–18.00 WIB

• Where: Menara Kompas, 2nd Floor, Palmerah, Jakarta.

Tickets come in at Rp 125,000, which includes:

• One ticket to Pasar Gagasan

• The Kompas Sumpah Pemuda special edition

• Exclusive Harian Kompas (Kompas.id) merchandise

• Three months of Kompas.id access

We will see you there!

The sky appears crimson orange in dystopian-like viral videos as fires continue to rage across the forests and peatlands of Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua. People have been living under a suffocating blanket of haze there for over three months, many suffering from acute respiratory infections as the air gets increasingly hazardous.

President Prabowo Subianto recently said he is consulting experts on how to tackle the toxic haze, but it may be time to rely on rain as the “final solution.” But the long dry season is not to blame. Experts at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) had sounded the alarm about the severity of the Super El Niño, which would increase the risk of forest fires, since April 2026. Yet the government did little, if anything, to seriously prevent forest and peatland fires, a chronic ecological disaster we have repeatedly failed to manage.

The government’s response has a gap: putting out fires is critical, but it is not the same as managing a disaster at this scale. If they measure a response’s success primarily by the number of personnel deployed, or fires extinguished, they overlook the ordinary people who bear the costs. The government must respond to the crisis in its full scope, including immediate health impacts, economic losses, and longer-term environmental damage.

The question now is: can the government’s response protect people from the consequences of their negligence?

Firefighting alone is not enough

At the central level, the prevailing narrative is that the government has deployed maximum effort and resources to put out the fires. Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya claimed the government has deployed over 60,000 personnel to carry out a “land operation” with an 80 percent success rate in extinguishing new fires. This kind of success claim is paraded around as if the war against forest fires can be measured solely by the number of hectares extinguished.

However, the success of a disaster response cannot be measured solely by the number of fires extinguished. The government may claim to have reached maximum capacity, yet smog continues to blanket cities, poison citizens’ lungs, and disrupt everyday life.

The direct blow is now being borne brutally by the most vulnerable groups. Schools are forced to close in North Sumatera (and neighboring countries like Timor-Leste), robbing children of their fundamental right to a safe, proper education. As of 11 October, over 62,000 infants and toddlers are suffering from chronic coughs and acute respiratory infections, threatening their development. Daily-wage earners, farm laborers, and small vendors lose their livelihoods overnight because stepping outside into hazardous air is an impossible gamble. These are not peripheral consequences of the fires. They are central measures of the disaster’s severity and of the government’s responsibility to respond.

The government must therefore broaden its definition of progress. It must continue extinguishing active fires while protecting people from hazardous air, ensuring essential services continue, helping affected communities recover, and holding responsible parties accountable. These are not competing priorities but complementary responsibilities.

Indonesia already has legal frameworks that support demands for emergency assistance, recovery, and accountability from the government and other responsible actors. The homework now is to translate those frameworks into action while the crisis is still unfolding.

Drawing on an analogy of an airline’s responsibilities when disruption leaves passengers stranded, there are four things the government must do:

1. Provide immediate relief for people throughout the hazardous haze and fire, now

Public health protection must be an immediate part of the emergency response, not a secondary measure after the fires are extinguished.

When flights are canceled, passengers may be entitled to assistance with food, accommodation, and alternative arrangements, depending on the circumstances and applicable rules. In a forest-fire crisis, the state likewise has a responsibility to ensure people are not left to bear the immediate costs of a disaster they cannot control.

Law No. 24/2007 on Disaster Management and Government Regulation No. 22/2008 on Funding and Management of Disaster Relief provide a legal basis for meeting emergency basic needs, including under Article 17 of the latter regulation.

In practical terms, immediate relief requires the government to provide:

• Emergency shelter and evacuation: Safe, smoke-free environments with proper air filtration systems for displaced or vulnerable residents.

• Basic health interventions: Immediate distribution of standardized masks (such as N95 respirators), mobile health clinics, and free medical treatment for haze-related acute respiratory infections.

• Essential supplies: Ensure access to clean drinking water, nutrition, and other essentials for communities stranded by severe smoke and poor visibility.

• Livelihood support: Provide temporary assistance for daily-wage earners, outdoor workers, and others who lose income because hazardous air prevents them from working.

These measures must be guided by timely air-quality information and clear thresholds for action. Residents need to clearly understand the risk level in their area and what precautions to take, while schools, employers, and local authorities need clear guidance on when to suspend or modify activities.

Just as assistance to stranded passengers cannot wait until a flight resumes, emergency relief must reach affected communities while the crisis is unfolding.

2. Use every available resource to contain the fires

The government must be honest about its capacity to contain the fires and mobilize additional resources when needed, just as an airline must find alternatives when it cannot get passengers to their destinations as planned.

The Indonesian government has reported deploying over 60,000 personnel and achieving an 80 percent success rate in extinguishing new fires. While we can acknowledge these efforts, the government should be honest about the scale of the problem and whether its operational capacity matches the crisis’s scale and persistence.

This problem has now caught international attention, reflecting its true scale. Transboundary haze sparked serious debate in neighboring Malaysia’s parliament, with politicians like Syed Saddiq recorded on camera voicing Malaysians’ anguish over haze disrupting their daily lives, urging fellow ASEAN countries to apply diplomatic pressure and treat Indonesia as “an outcast in the region.”

National pride should not prevent the government from using available resources to protect people. Malaysia said it offered assistance, but Indonesia didn’t respond. Japan, meanwhile, deployed three Chinook helicopters to Kalimantan, dropping 220 tonnes of water around Ketapang and Pontianak before concluding its mission. Japan’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Indonesian government appreciated its contribution to curbing the fires and added that it could handle further response.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the government has been reluctant to accept assistance from foreign states. During last year’s floods in Sumatra, the central government reportedly only allowed local authorities to receive aid from international entities while restricting assistance from foreign governments. Such distinctions deserve scrutiny when they risk narrowing the resources available to people in need.

Where domestic capacity falls short, the government should coordinate additional resources and accept appropriate assistance from other countries and regional partners. An airline unable to manage a disruption with its existing capacity would be expected to explore workable alternatives. A government responsible for protecting millions of people should be equally willing to use every effective option available.

3. Rebuild livelihoods and restore damaged ecosystems

When a flight is canceled, airlines must not only get passengers through the immediate disruption, but also help them reach their destination. Similarly, for communities affected by forest fires, recovery means restoring livelihoods, addressing losses, and repairing environmental damage.

At this scale, the impact of haze extends far beyond smoke exposure. Daily-wage earners, farm laborers, and small vendors can lose income as hazardous air disrupts work. Farmers suffer crop and land damage. Families bear additional healthcare costs and educational disruptions. These losses can persist long after the fires are extinguished.

The government should assess these losses early and translate them into concrete recovery plans. This includes restoring livelihoods and damaged ecosystems, and ensuring assistance reaches those who cannot afford to wait for conditions to return to normal.

Recovery must also address who ultimately pays. Where evidence establishes that companies are legally responsible for environmental damage, the government should pursue compensation and restoration through available legal mechanisms. Public funds may be needed to provide timely assistance, but the public should not automatically bear the long-term costs of damage caused by these actors.

Government Regulation No. 22/2008 on Funding and Management of Disaster Relief and Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management provide relevant frameworks for disaster recovery and environmental restoration. Yet, pursuing accountability in court can be difficult. Community lawsuits against concession corporations in Ogan Komering Ilir (South Sumatera), for example, faced setbacks over rigid legal standing requirements.

An airline would not fulfill its responsibility by simply providing a meal while leaving passengers stranded indefinitely. Likewise, the government cannot consider its job done once the smoke clears. Recovery must begin while the crisis is unfolding, with clear plans for livelihood support, environmental restoration, and compensation where legally warranted.

4. Address the causes and consequences of preventable harm

When an airline’s failure causes passengers harm, resolving the immediate disruption doesn’t erase its responsibility. Extreme weather can worsen fire conditions, but it doesn’t remove the government’s duty to prepare for foreseeable risks and enforce environmental laws. Government officials and companies must meet their legal obligations.

The government must establish who is responsible, whether agencies acted on available warnings, and what remedies are required. Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management provides avenues for environmental enforcement and legal remedies, subject to applicable requirements.

The government has begun investigating companies suspected of contributing to the fires. But without a transparent process to establish liability, impose appropriate consequences, and ensure restoration or compensation where warranted, these efforts risk becoming performative gestures rather than meaningful enforcement.

Indonesia has precedents for citizens seeking redress. After the 2015 fires and haze, residents of Central Kalimantan successfully sued the government, and the court granted 26 demands, including free healthcare for affected residents. Legal aid organizations (LBH) have led class actions in places like West Kalimantan, demanding that the government, among other things, take firm action against concession holders and restore burned forests and lands.

However, affected communities cannot be left to seek remedies on their own. This administration can take a bolder approach by fulfilling its enforcement responsibilities.

Passengers should not have to navigate a legal maze to obtain remedies for a service failure. Likewise, people affected by forest fires should not be left to bear the losses or fight alone to recover them.

The government must act now and prepare for what comes next

The ongoing crisis is an ecological emergency that tests the government’s ability to protect the public. The government should transparently assess whether the scale of the fires, public-health impacts, and disruption to essential services warrant a national disaster declaration. If the criteria are met, it should declare an emergency and mobilize the necessary resources. Whatever the formal status, immediate relief, recovery support, and effective fire containment cannot wait.

It is perhaps wishful thinking to expect the government to look beyond the immediate crisis and seriously examine why warnings did not translate into adequate prevention. BMKG had flagged heightened fire risks since April. At the very least, the public deserves to know how those warnings informed the government’s preparations, what went wrong, and what will change before the next fire season.

Rain may eventually bring relief. People may step in to help and donate. But neither can substitute for the government’s responsibility to protect its people.

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On 29 September, the House of Representatives passed the 2027 State Budget (APBN) into law. Finance Minister Suahasil Nazara delivered the government’s statement in plenary after only 15 days in the job.

President Prabowo Subianto swore him in on 14 September, replacing Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa. At his inauguration, the newly appointed Minister relayed the President’s specific instruction to safeguard state finances, keep the budget healthy and credible, and ensure it delivers the government’s priority programs.

“The APBN, as part of state finances, must be able to run the government’s priority programs,” said Suahasil, after being sworn in by President Prabowo, 14 September 2026.

This is the second year in a row the Finance Minister was replaced while the House deliberated the next year’s draft budget (RAPBN). But, compared to the last cycle, the President has been much more (publicly) directly involved in the planning process. On 20 May, the President went to the House himself to deliver the Macroeconomic Framework and Principles of Fiscal Policy (‘KEM PPKF’), the document that kickstarts each year’s budget talks with the legislature, making him the first Indonesian president to do so.

Two weeks earlier, at the National Development Planning Agency’s (Bappenas) Central Development Planning Coordination Meeting on 7 May, the central government introduced the National Priority Work Programs (‘PKPN’): 60 programs across eight clusters and one enabler program, described as the programs carrying the President’s direct directives.

One might expect little change to the budget (if at all) even with the change in Finance Minister.

That said, this piece examines how the government set and funded its priorities in the 2027 budget through allocations to different ministries and agencies (‘K/L’ or just ‘ministries’ hereafter).

This analysis draws on information from the 2027 draft state budget (‘RAPBN’), its financial note, and publicly available meetings between ministers and each House commission. These sources provided the only complete and consistent set of figures for reviewing the detailed budgetary changes.

What does RAPBN 2027 propose?

RAPBN 2027 planned state spending at Rp 4,097.2 trillion, the first time the budget crossed Rp 4,000 trillion, up 3.93 percent from the 2026 outlook of Rp 3,942.4 trillion. With GDP growth assumed at 6 percent, state spending is planned to grow more slowly than the economy.

Introducing: the National Priority Work Programs (‘PKPN’)

Ministries’ budgets for 2027 are focused on the 60 PKPN, the list of specific programs directed by the President. This is the first budget to apply the PKPN approach, though similar approaches may have existed before, such as the “money follows program” principle.

There is no information on the share of PKPN-forming programs in APBN 2026.

At the May meeting for the 2027 Government Work Plan, Bappenas presented its share in the 2026 budget after the efficiency cuts made early in the year. PKPN in 2027 is therefore compared with the 2026 post-efficiency budget allocation (DIPA).

In RAPBN 2027, PKPN took a larger share of the ministries’ spending budget (Rp 653.4 trillion, 43.42 percent) than the same set of programs in the 2026 post-efficiency DIPA (Rp 531.3 trillion, 36.30 percent). The share was slightly lower than what was presented at the indicative ceiling stage (Rp 626.5 trillion, 45.71 percent), even though the PKPN total in RAPBN 2027 was larger.

This supports the observation that, when setting the indicative ceiling, the government budgeted for PKPN programs first. Only when preparing RAPBN 2027 was the ceiling loosened, and the additional room went to non-PKPN programs that had not yet been funded.

By cluster, RAPBN 2027 changed every cluster significantly in both value and share. The Poverty Reduction cluster declined, in line with the 2027 poverty targets compared with 2026. The 2027 target is a poverty rate of 6 to 6.5 percent (the 2026 target was 6.5 to 7.5 percent), and extreme poverty close to 0 percent.

The Downstreaming and Industrialization cluster also declined by 1.25 percent, to Rp 1.38 trillion. PKPN covers ministries’ budgets only. A full picture of this cluster needs information on other channels: from the state budget (investment financing, subsidies, regional transfers, and others), from Danantara, and from private investment. This holds for every cluster. It is just more visible here.

Ministry spending and programs

RAPBN 2027 set ministries and agencies (‘K/L’ in the charts) spending at Rp 1,504.74 trillion, slightly below the Rp 1,510.48 trillion of APBN 2026, down Rp 5.74 trillion (0.38 percent). The comparison uses APBN 2026 figures, not the post-efficiency DIPA.

While total ministry spending in RAPBN 2027 was roughly unchanged from last year, much changed across specific ministries and programs. Chiefly, several of the country’s largest ministries and programs were slated for cuts. Several others received sizable additions.

Of 99 ministries and agencies with their own budget section:

1. 46 will receive more

2. 52 will receive less

3. 1 newly formed

And of 106 programs, excluding the Management Support Program:

1. 48 programs will receive more

2. 57 programs will receive less

3. 1 program is newly formed

The Management Support Program itself rose 1.14 percent (Rp 5.34 trillion) to Rp 474.77 trillion. This suggests that either the fixed transition costs of setting up new institutions that were visible early in this government’s term are cooling, or that the civil service capacity is being held where it is and is not planned to grow for next year — or perhaps both.

Compared with the efficiency and reallocation of the 2025 and 2026 budgets, RAPBN 2027 slightly corrects the concentration of budget in large ministries. At the widest gap, the six largest ministries differ from the previous year by 3.08 percentage points. This may appear minuscule; however, in absolute value, that 3.08 percent difference amounts to Rp 45.14 trillion, reflecting close to the combined budget of the 58 smallest ministries.

At the program level, the 8 largest programs made up 65.77 percent of ministry budgets in APBN 2026 and 61.12 percent in RAPBN 2027. The 4.65-percentage-point difference is worth Rp 47.90 trillion. Deconcentration is slightly larger at the program level than at the ministry level.

The shape of the cuts and the additions can be explored too.

The 10 ministries with the largest cuts account for 89.15 percent of all cuts.

The 10 ministries with the largest additions account for 66.58 percent of all additions.

Meaning cuts were concentrated in a few large ministries, while additions were spread thinly across many. The exception is the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry (ESDM), which alone makes up 22.93 percent of all additions.

The same pattern shows at the program level:

The 10 programs with the largest cuts account for 84.62 percent of total cuts.

The 10 with the largest additions account for 72.92 percent of total additions.

What moved?

Program budgets, change in RAPBN 2027 from the 2026 APBN Law (Ministry or agency in parentheses):

Is the movement due to PKPN?

The links between ministry budget movements and PKPN can only be guessed. For example, ESDM’s Energy and Electricity Program aligns with PKPN’s electrification of 10,000 villages and gas networks. The fisheries increase fits the government’s Fishing Villages program, fishing vessels, and salt industry centers.

But a PKPN program is not the same thing as a ministry program. PKPN programs are assembled from Detailed Outputs (‘RO’), three levels of detail below a ministry program, and the Financial Note does not go that far down. A ministry program’s ceiling can shrink while the PKPN outputs inside it grow, and vice versa.

The approved budget

On top of the approved RAPBN, the actual 2027 state budget added Rp 9.1 trillion to state spending, raising the final 2027 figure to Rp 4,106.26 trillion. The composition changed more than the total.

Ministry spending rose by Rp 52.16 trillion, and non-ministry spending fell by Rp 43.09 trillion. Rp 11.44 trillion of the non-ministry reduction came from cuts in energy subsidies. The rest is not itemized, but most likely came from “other spending”, a nondescript post in the State General Treasurer’s budget section that can be adjusted in the budget year.

The change came in two steps. On 7 September, with then-Minister Purbaya still in office, the tentative posture discussed with the House’s budget committee (Banggar) already raised ministry spending by Rp 9.1 trillion, to Rp 1,513.8 trillion. At the 24 September meeting, under Minister Suahasil, the government moved another Rp 43 trillion or so from non-ministry to ministry spending. Last year, under Minister Purbaya, Rp 43 trillion was added to central transfers to local governments. This year, a similar sum went to the ministries.

At that same 24 September meeting, the report of the working committee (Panja) on central government spending said the ministry spending addition was “among others, for additional allocations to” a list of ministries in an attachment, which was not read out, to support “the implementation of the 8 PKPN clusters.” At the plenary, the Government’s final opinion stated plainly that fiscal policy “must remain prudent, but not passive.” Banggar Chair Said Abdullah added a caution, “Every rupiah spent must be measurable, both in output and in outcome.”

Neither public document lists which ministries received the additional funds.

Where will the additional Rp 52.16 trillion go?

Part of the addition can be pieced together from the commission hearings that preceded the plenary; the rest cannot be pieced together due to limited public information.

The largest movement came from the decision that the central government will bear the salaries of government contract employees (P3K) working for regional governments, budgeted at Rp 23 trillion. It will do this through ministerial spending instead of increasing regional transfers. In the agreed figures, the Rp 23 trillion sits in the Primary and Secondary Education Ministry’s Quality of Teaching and Learning Program.

The remaining Rp 21.64 trillion sits among 22 ministries and agencies whose agreed figures are not in the public record.

What to monitor next?

PKPN widens the set of programs that are actually prioritized in budget terms, and slightly reduces the reliance on MBG. PKPN in RAPBN 2027 rose by Rp 122.1 trillion from the 2026 post-efficiency DIPA, while the National Nutrition Fulfillment Program was cut by Rp 22.80 trillion. The House’s addition did not change that. At the same time, Rp 52.16 trillion was added in the name of PKPN; Rp 21.64 trillion of it is not yet itemized in the public record, and none of it is described by output.

Two things can be monitored further:

1. Shifts between ministries, programs, and the State General Treasurer’s budget section (BA BUN) during the budget year.

2. PKPN details in the Government Work Plan, APBN Law 2027, and the Presidential Regulation on Budget Details, compared with the draft Work Plan at the indicative ceiling stage.

Both depend on the documents being public and on time. Last year they were neither. The 2026 APBN Law (No. 17/2025) was signed and promulgated on 22 October 2025, but the public could only read it in early January 2026, after Notes on Nusantara and The Reformist had written asking where it was. The 2026 Government Work Plan, which regulations require by June, was set by Presidential Regulation 117/2025 only on 20 November 2025. The Presidential Regulation on Budget Details, due by 30 November, was still not public in January.

For 2027, the President has until 29 October to sign the 2027 APBN Law, after which it takes effect without his signature. At the time of writing, neither the 2027 APBN Law nor the Presidential Regulation on the 2027 RKP has been published. Whether this year’s documents arrive on time and are made public still needs to be monitored.

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Almost a year ago, thousands of citizens poured onto the streets of major cities across this country in protest against an elite-driven government and executive power overreach.

Protesters demanded sweeping reform, sharing with news outlets their frustrations:

“I think there are brilliant minds who are here today who know what bad legislation, bad policies, can do to our entire country, and what the future looks like if we continue down, not able to stop what’s happening and proceeding.”

“We’ve been doing as much as we can anytime that we can because it has to continue. If we lose the momentum, then we lose the fight.”

“[I’m here] giving a voice to a voiceless man that has been taken from us — unfairly and unlawfully — and [his family] needs justice.”

If these sentiments sound familiar to Indonesian readers — with a vague allusion to the nationwide (even international) “#ResetIndonesia” protests in 2025 — then our readers might be surprised to learn that these are not quotes from Indonesian activists but American protesters during last October’s “No Kings” movement. The two protests, in fact, share some similarities: Both nationwide, decentralized, and triggered by economic woes and executive overreach from a president with autocratic tendencies. Despite the lack of international news coverage after the first protest in June 2025, No Kings continues to beat its own record as the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.

And there is another one to come. On 17 October, Americans will gear up for the fourth round of nationwide demonstrations, a month ahead of the Congressional midterm elections.

The coalition claims this protest will look different. It focuses on helping people vote early by organizing community events, block parties, and walking people to the polls. The gathering aims to “turn people power into voter power” amid the fight for the country’s democracy.

But No Kings is by no means the first of such movements against democratic backsliding, where the fundamental system of representation is under threat. In other recent protests around the world — from South Korea to Serbia — people have fought for the resilience of their democracies with power amassed through broad-based support, consistent civil disobedience, and sustained electoral pressure on governments and executive powers, resulting in major governance reform and political realignment.

With protest culture widespread but fragmented in Indonesia, a major underlying issue continues to be:

What next?

This article dives deeper into protest movement models, how other countries have turned people’s desire for change into sweeping legislative action or executive reform, and which case studies might apply in an Indonesian context. In other words, after the streets are flooded and momentum is high, how do citizens begin holding political actors accountable?

A new dual-purpose mission for protest movements

Last year saw a surge in protests worldwide, some of which were sustained from 2024, like those in Serbia, Kenya, and Bangladesh. Many of these mass demonstrations were spearheaded by a so-called Gen Z solidarity, protesting shared themes of corruption, economic stagnation, and frustration under the current political systems in their countries.

But more than a year later, protest outcomes have been mixed. Some countries, like Nepal, managed to completely overthrow their old-guard leadership, while others, such as Indonesia, faced harsh government crackdowns and mass detention of protesters that struck a blow to activists’ motivation, according to a source involved in the demonstrations.

This column will not belabor the debate over whether protest efforts are generally effective methods of demanding reform. Rich academic evidence already shows that protests can and do raise awareness of a social problem and empower communities on a scale large enough to pressure political leaders to enact specific policy reform.

The issue facing several countries today, whether Indonesia or the United States, is the global rise of democratic backsliding, and the limited power of protesting under these governments. Mass demonstrations have increasingly become more than a battle for specific policy reforms; they are also a fight to preserve the right to protest itself in the face of governments threatening to prune a major avenue for public expression.

“Although one-off mass demonstrations in eroding democracies can yield short-term, tactical concessions, especially when leaders are caught off-guard, it does not generally halt the “trajectory of autocratization,” said Saskia Brechenmacher, Senior Fellow for Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace in an interview with The Reformist.

This is what happened in Georgia, an Eastern European nation. Since the ruling Georgian Dream party took control of parliament in 2012, the party has expanded its control over state institutions, security forces, and electoral governance. In 2023, the country introduced a so-called Russian-style foreign agent law, which would require NGOs receiving 20 percent or more of their funding from international sources to register themselves as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” Mass protests ensued, with activists and opposition leaders arguing the measure was introduced to silence dissent. The government initially withdrew the proposal to appease protesters, but in 2024, the legislation was ultimately passed into law.

Instead, Carnegie’s Brechenmacher told The Reformist that mass demonstrations have proven more effective in backsliding democracies when they mobilize people into political channels, whether by encouraging opposition legislators to rein in executive overreach or by building larger electoral coalitions to vote out the incumbent leader. South Korea is an example of the former, where mass protests against former President Yoon Seok Yeol’s failed attempt at martial law empowered opposition leaders in the parliament to act swiftly and impeach him in 2025. Analysts have considered the consistent and frequent punishment of authoritarian overreach as both a demonstration of its democratic resilience as well as its fragility.

What’s clear is that protests alone do not automatically remove bad leaders or policies. Parliaments, courts, and government institutions need to feel the political pressure to meet public demands because doing nothing to change the status quo threatens their power.

The case for building broad coalitions

No Kings is currently attempting reform through the latter, electoral strategy ahead of the midterms, after spending the past year building a large tent coalition. The prodemocracy movement has an intentionally broad and appealing message — “sustained national resistance to tyranny,” according to the coalition’s website — which takes a stance against a breadth of the Trump administration’s unpopular policy decisions and executive overreach, including:

• the unlawful detention, violent arrests, military deployment into American cities, and even the murder of US citizens by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE);

• election manipulation and political gerrymandering (reconfiguring voting maps to favor certain parties);

• a strained economic environment that has hiked the cost of living across the country; and

• foreign wars and intervention in countries such as Venezuela, Gaza, and Iran.

The movement has also sought to decentralize beyond major city centers and has brought out several first-time protesters across the country, increasing resistance in counties where Republicans have historically dominated. That said, polling data still reflects that more than 90 percent of protesters identify as left-leaning and voted Democrat in the 2024 election.

Bringing more people into the fold is not without its criticisms (and not only from MAGA sycophants). Other observers have argued that the anti-Trump movement falls short on actually offering specific policies, and protesters’ range of demands introduces internal contradictions within the movement, making it challenging for organizers to prioritize.

But the broad coalition increases the likelihood that No Kings reaches the critical 3.5 percent threshold of single-moment mass mobilization. According to research by Harvard Kennedy School political scientist Erica Chenoweth, “most governments fail to withstand a challenge against their rule [such as a change in leadership or government control] if more than 3.5 percent of their country’s population mobilized against it during a peak event.” For the United States, that would be 12 million people, and the last No Kings protests amassed 8–9 million people.

For Indonesia, that threshold is closer to 10 million people.

Of course, the sheer number of protesters alone is not enough. Chenoweth’s work also acknowledges that factors including momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability “are likely as important as large-scale participation in achieving movement success and are often precursors to achieving 3.5 percent participation,” and that there are movements that have not met this threshold but still exerted government pressure.

The critical conclusion: Large-scale, nonviolent movements require sustained momentum, often over years, to experiment with different political vehicles for mobilizing against backsliding. While it is still too early to tell what the effect this strategy will have on actually rallying voters for the U.S. midterms, the framework offers a window for observers to take note of the strategies and limits of this movement.

But what if you don’t trust your government?

Readers facing the everyday effects of democratic backsliding — the media censorship, intimidation, and in more severe cases, the use of militarized force and surveillance on civilians — might skim the first sections of this article and roll their eyes, exhausted by hearing a sentiment akin to former president Barack Obama’s remark during a 2016 presidential election rally: “Do not boo, vote!”

That’s to say, sure, voting your way out of an autocrat’s leadership sounds nice in theory. But what if you feel that there are no politicians or parties that can actually effect change? How can you build a coalition if there is no alternative future?

Other countries have offered another path to resistance, one that seems pretty popular among a younger generation of activists and civically engaged citizens: starting fresh. Overhaul the system entirely and rid the institutions of cronyism, nepotism, and old regimes that no longer serve the public. Nepal is perhaps the most recent and prominent example of this political restart, but neighboring Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have also elected new governments after a series of protests ousted their leaders in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

To the credit of these movements, the rupture of old regimes created a narrow opportunity to establish new systems, one that still took the form of elections rather than a complete militarized takeover. After the ousting of now-exiled prime minister Sheikh Hasina in 2025, Bangladesh’s interim government proposed a new national charter that calls for sweeping government reforms, such as proposing term limits on legislators and imposing measures to prevent conflicts of interest, money laundering, and corruption. The legal framework is in the process of being implemented following a referendum vote earlier in February.

Nepal’s newly formed youth-alliance party, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), won a majority in the country’s March parliamentary elections — the first majority win in decades — making former-rapper-turned-Kathmandu-mayor Balendra “Balen” Shah the youngest prime minister in Nepal’s history. In his first few days, the government issued a 100-point roadmap to governance reform, ordered authorities to arrest the former prime minister KP Sharma Oli over his violent crackdown on the protests that ousted him from power, opened corruption investigations on three former prime ministers, and offered employment at the national electricity company to the families of those killed in the 2025 protests, among other legislation.

These moves were hailed as a significant step in rebuilding these countries from the ground up. But observers say several uphill battles remain beyond any single government’s control, including the inherited economy (all three countries are facing IMF bailouts), environmental disasters, and a high risk of political fracturing within parties. Massive flooding hit Nepal in late August, killing more than 1,400 people. While Prime Minister Shah called for reparations by industrialized powers at this year’s UN General Assembly, the country is still struggling to raise adequate funding for its recovery efforts amid a global shrinking in development aid.

Working with the system you’re given

Complete revolution is a high-risk game, with major uncertainties in both ensuring clean internal governance and tackling external geopolitical, environmental, and economic challenges that will undoubtedly continue to challenge a country regardless of who is in power. Ultimately, organizers of mass movements must ask themselves candidly: Is this risk worth taking? After a protest, what is going to be the strongest political vehicle to drive the necessary systemic reform they want to see?

Indonesian organizers are contending with this question in the aftermath of last year’s demonstrations, according to Satya Azyumar, an activist who co-founded Social Justice Indonesia, a youth organization that advocates for the rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups and trains and accompanies first-time protesters. “I’d say the characteristic of youth organizing in Indonesia is that they are arguably apolitical — they don’t trust practical politics. This is understandable, given the disappointment with political parties as democratic institutions in Indonesia aren’t functioning well,” he told The Reformist.

Disillusioned by the current system, Azyumar said many activists are inspired by Nepal and the decentralized, anti-autocratic protests in Hong Kong in 2019. “But at the same time, [Indonesian organizers] lack the capacity to bring out such massive change right now; it has to be built up gradually,” he added, while also recognizing that even after Nepal was able to topple its government, the new leadership was left scrambling to figure out what new form of government the country would take. For now, organizers in Jakarta are seeking to foster a fresh vision for “political resistance,” including by supporting alternative parties like the Labor Party (Partai Buruh).

For those curious whether this strategy is effective, it may be worth closely watching the outcomes of the upcoming Serbian elections at the end of October. Since November 2024, student activists have been organizing massive anti-government protests after a roof collapsed in a renovated train station, killing 16 people. The movement’s leaders assert that the poor infrastructure was a direct result of shoddy government development projects. Law enforcement was deployed to squash protesters, but the movement has only grown in solidarity to include teachers, lawyers and health workers. Residences across the country have provided students with shelter, food and legal aid.

Now, the protests have evolved from demanding more government transparency to what experts call “campaign mode.” Rather than seeking to run for office themselves, as was the case in Nepal, student organizers concluded that the appropriate political vehicle is to support their choice of technocratic policy experts for the election. Gathering more than 400,000 public signatures to field their own independent electoral list, the students are charting a path to challenge current populist President Aleksandar Vučić. Public polling predicts favorability toward Vučić, but analysts say that the election will likely be decided by citizens who have historically abstained from voting, which is where students have the best chance to mobilize.

Converting collective anger into durable political power

Protest movements have proven most effective when they are conducted persistently and elicit a critical mass invested in systemic reform. But it is only one component of political change. After the frustration and anger, underlying questions remain. Do we just organize another election with the same people but new party names and structures? Do we just celebrate a statement that the government will do better? Or do we just wait for the next wave of protests?

For Indonesia, this seems to be the question that everyone is asking and avoiding at the same time. Indonesia has romanticized its entire history as constructed through protest, from pre-independence, those in the 1960s that contributed to Sukarno’s resignation, the endless examples during Suharto’s New Order, the 1998 protests and the start of the Reformasi era, all the way to the new generation of young organizers in the past decade.

But systemic reform has been limited in recent years, with more authoritarian reactions to protests. “These young activists don’t really want to effect change through political channels. They take to the streets to demand change from the state but shy away from the ‘dirty’ or strategic advocacy work, such as lobbying,” Azyumar told The Reformist.

“Yet, we know that the current Indonesian government doesn’t feel the need to listen to the people. Why should we, as the public, make demands of people who don’t even care about us?” he opined.

In a moment where the right to expression and protest itself is under threat, it is more critical than ever to convert collective anger into durable political power. This includes mobilizing frustrated citizens into electoral politics and consistent disobedience to resist forces that seek to take this power away from the public. While the United States faces these challenges ahead of November’s midterm elections, Indonesian organizers still have several years to strategize which political vehicle will effect the necessary good governance the country deserves. Time will tell whether Indonesia can join the global wave of returning political power back to the people.

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Bangkok Climate Action Week wrapped up last week after convening more than 250 events across the Thai capital to “reimagine” what is already well-known to the plethora of activists, policy practitioners, and private sector representatives in attendance: Climate change is here, and Southeast Asia is in dire need of a climate-resilient future and a just energy transition.

While Bangkok Climate Week holds concerts, pop-up marketplaces, and art installations all around the city, Bangkok the city is experiencing widespread flooding from rainstorms last weekend. The preliminary death toll across Thailand has reached 31 people, according to official government numbers, while thousands have been displaced, including in more than 20 other Thai cities.

It’s painful and ironic to witness these so-called dialogues unfold amid real climate disasters. Meanwhile, these convenings have ballooned in recent years into music-festival-level attendance and programming (NYC Climate Week sees more than 100 thousand people each year), but they often include the same programming, participants, and problems, going in circles to “innovate” climate solutions.

Look, dialogues and meetings can solve some very real issues, but they need to be designed with a specific outcome in mind, and at the Pareto-efficient level of time, resources, and capacity. They are simply a direct trade-off that cannibalizes climate leaders’ time to implement climate solutions, with little to no accountability in ensuring specific change after said convenings.

Today, policymakers are encouraged — and expected — to gallivant around the world and show face at these events, at the expense of time spent on tackling issues at home. Meanwhile, corporate sponsors get to put their names on it all, effectively greenwashing their profits and claiming they’re helping fund a solution to the very problem they may well be perpetuating.

There has to be a better way, right?

Global forums can produce major breakthroughs when designed with clear outcomes in mind

Consider this: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which forms the current basis for UN-related climate negotiations, organizes several pre-summit meetings to prepare for its annual UN climate meeting, the Conference of Parties (COP). This year, UNFCCC hosted four meetings ahead of COP31 in November: the Bonn June Climate Meetings in Germany to discuss the technical framework for COP; two climate week meetings — in South Korea and Azerbaijan — to build momentum toward COP; and a pre-COP summit in Fiji.

That’s just the formal UN channels for climate negotiations. There is an entire NGO ecosystem of climate conferences that aim to offer increased grassroots and stakeholder engagement, including the NYC Climate Week (which has become known as the “Burning Man” for climate geeks), London Climate Action Week, Shanghai Climate Week, Climate Action Week Sydney, Rio Climate Action Week, and Lagos Climate Action Week. Jakarta hasn’t missed out either, with Pekan Iklim last held in 2024.

Granted, these forums can produce some major breakthroughs, such as the creation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which has been the leading framework on climate action for the past decade, and the recently operationalized Loss and Damage Fund, a climate financing tool to compensate vulnerable countries’ climate adaptation projects and mitigate climate change-related damages.

Even informal channels can have meaningful impact, as long as they have a clear theory of change. A former project lead for an annual global convening on climate and youth for a multilateral NGO, who requested to speak on condition of anonymity, said one intangible benefit of these convenings is offering activists a platform that they otherwise would not have to travel abroad or connect with one another.

“[It] would be really cool [to see when] there was someone working on a certain type of air pollution project in one country, and then they would meet someone else from another country, and we would help facilitate those connections,” she told The Reformist.

But without clear outcome- and goal-setting, the increase in meetings poses marginal returns without implementation. There are only so many idea exchanges that can happen ahead of real policy reform and infrastructure investment.

Meanwhile, the carbon (and time) footprints are not negligible

One analysis by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University estimated that a single economy class, round-trip flight on a commercial airplane from the east coast of the United States to central Europe would produce around 1.3 metric tons of carbon dioxide per passenger, around the same carbon footprint as an average year of daily round-trip commuting (around 25 kilometers). Imagine that at a scale of 77,000 people — just how many people attended last year’s Bangkok Climate Action Week.

Beyond the direct emissions from travel and hosting these meetings, there is also an underlying question of how organizers and policymakers allocate resources and time.

Indonesian forestry expert Doddy S. Sukadri, who is a former COP summit negotiator, argued in an op-ed for Kompas that, “The large scale and grandeur of the annual COP meeting can burden the decision-making process. The logistical demands of hosting and securing service providers … can further add to the complexity and result in government hesitance to attend the climate COP summit.”

Coordinating travel and events takes time and resources (sometimes funding these organizations do not yet have, forcing them to seek external grants to keep up) that could otherwise go to other programming.

“[Our NGO] ran a grants program,” the former project lead explained, “where we would give out up to [USD]10,000 for young people to do climate projects. When you look at the budget, it’s kind of funny to think [how a certain] amount of dollars are going to these travel expenses … is enough money for more climate projects that instead didn’t get funded because [of the] way the budget was allocated.”

Climate-conscious NGOs and nonprofit leaders should consider whether attending or facilitating these meetings are meaningfully contributing to climate action, or whether they are simply hosting and participating in a convening for the sake of it.

For these convenings to be worth the time, energy, and resources, various climate leaders, funders, and governments in the ecosystem need to exercise their agency and honestly ask themselves:

Policy leaders are exhausted, too

It is an (almost) universally acknowledged truth that high-level government officials in the Ministry of Environment — among others — end up spending a significant amount of time in meetings and dialogues with domestic and international development partners. These obligations can leave them with less time to do the actual work, yet they have little choice but to fulfill them.

A dedicated directorate just for international stakeholder engagement, with staff whose full-time job is to attend these meetings, almost starts to sound like a sensible idea. Alas, resources are scarce in Global South governments. Officials often have to attend these meetings to secure more resources, even as the meetings consume their most precious resource: time.

“It seems that the UNFCCC Secretariat is trapped in the notion that world leaders must always be present at the COP,” wrote Sukadri in his Kompas op-ed. In reality, Sukadri added, “what is truly needed is not their presence… but rather actions and tangible examples in providing climate leadership.” That is to say, while global negotiations can align countries and build trust on major pillars of financing and energy transition, the so-called work of climate leadership itself is on regional, national, and local platforms.

So, if the organizers are stretched thin planning these events that policymakers are too preoccupied with attending instead of implementing meaningful legislation, who actually benefits from these convenings?

The short answer: Corporate sponsors who get to greenwash their reputations and impose some leverage on the general themes of these convenings.

A nonprofit industrial complex focused on vibes and optics, not funding and action

The ‘corporatification’ of COP is well-documented. At COP30 in Brazil last year, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered country delegations by one in every twenty-five. Ahead of the COP28 summit in Dubai, former COP president and CEO of the UAE’s state oil company Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber was mired in scandal involving his attempts to arrange side deals with fossil fuel companies.

How is that even allowed?

But corporate participants’ and sponsors’ influence is especially felt at summits like Climate Week, where agendas are more dynamic and shaped by those who bid to host panels.

In New York City, tech company participants like Microsoft and Nvidia have been accused this year of greenwashing their reputations by leading sessions on climate mitigation while actively building AI data centers that use significant amounts of water and energy. In fact, according to a CNN report, this year’s summit sharply shifted from climate targets and emissions reductions to a strong focus on powering “the AI revolution and its electricity-hungry data centers without relying on newly constructed fossil fuel plants.”

“I think the overall tone, at least for New York Climate Week, is still pretty corporate,” US-based environmental and land justice activist Alexia Leclercq told The Reformist. Having attended both NYC Climate Week and various COP summits, she observed that the main problem with these meetings is that it is still “where the funders are at, and a lot of the climate space [runs] on the nonprofit industrial complex.”

The “nonprofit industrial complex” framework argues that because many NGOs are often funded by governments, foundations with establishment ties, or sometimes by private companies, they function as a form of social placating and reinforce the status quo rather than as an independent body that can demand full accountability from governments or the private sector. As a result, nonprofits can often replicate the same structural issues they criticize or are trying to reform.

What this means in practice is that it introduces a trapping cycle of nonprofits hosting events to maintain relevance and appease their fundings, while leaders and organizations participate in their events to receive funding or recognition, justifying the existence of these meetings, which continues to introduce more convenings for more funding, more networking, more clout, and so forth.

Let leaders get to work, please

Let’s be honest: The real climate work is not in the swanky hotels, expo centers, or pop-up booths in Bangkok, London, or New York; it is right here at home. Governments need to do the work. Funders need to front the money. It’s as simple as that.

This sentiment is common among organizers, according to Leclercq. “Maybe this is too idealistic of me,” she added, “but I’m like, can we just get straight to the point? Have a lunch, invite some funders, invite some nonprofits, [and organizers say] this is what we’re doing. Will you fund us?”

Nobody really wants to do this whole song and dance; not the activists, not the organizers, not the government officials. But funders — whether philanthropies, corporate donors, or Global North countries — need the willpower to want to invest in necessary climate action. They need to support adaptation and mitigation efforts by funding Global South government infrastructure, investing in frontline communities, and trusting that the leaders know their local contexts to effectively implement climate solutions that serve their people.

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On 2 October, 26 political figures took an oath in the State Palace to give the president unvarnished counsel as members of the Presidential Advisory Board (‘Wantimpres’). The press predictably focused on spectacles, like political critic Rocky Gerung — famous for his often controversial commentaries on the Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration — now stepping into the corridors of power he once ridiculed. Sure, Rocky’s appointment makes a striking headline, but the media circus surrounding a single maverick obscured a far more consequential story unfolding in the room:

Why does President Prabowo Subianto need 26 more advisors to tell him how to govern?

Law No. 19/2006 established the Presidential Advisory Board as a deliberately lean body of nine distinguished figures. But a 2024 amendment (Law No. 64/2024) scrapped that limit, and a 2026 Presidential Decree ballooned the structure into a clunky apparatus comprising a chair, a deputy chair, a secretary, and twenty-three members. Even if one interprets this expansion as a well-intentioned attempt to satisfy the constitutional mandate that the president be advised, the advisory does not exist in a vacuum.

President Prabowo Subianto already appointed ten Special Advisors (‘penasihat khusus’) for politics, economy, national security, defense, energy, healthcare, hajj affairs, communications, civic technology, and labor affairs. And then there’s the National Economic Council (‘DEN’) — an eight-member economic advisory council chaired by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, who sits on both bodies. If we remove the overlaps and count each individual once, we get 43 prominent figures with formal, state-funded appointments explicitly tasked with advising one person.

Prabowo’s advisory crowd works alongside the largest cabinet in the country’s history: an executive branch of 49 cabinet ministers and more than 50 deputy ministers. Add the Chief of Staff, the Cabinet Secretary, the State Secretary, and dozens of government bodies to this tally, and you get 166 people in the president’s cabinet.

It takes a leap of imagination to believe a specific national policy decision genuinely improves after running through a gauntlet of over 100 ministers, deputies, and advisors. It is even harder to picture the logistical reality of a working meeting where 43 advisors are given the floor to debate complex state affairs.

Then there’s the burden on the public treasury. Presidential Regulation No. 15/2026 fixed each advisory board member’s monthly salary at Rp 76.5 million, paired with ministerial-level facilities such as official vehicles, healthcare, and housing allowances. So it’s roughly Rp 918 million per year per advisor before taxes.

For the Board alone, the basic compensation package approaches Rp 24 billion annually, excluding the substantial operational costs of dedicated secretariats, travel budgets, security details, and office facilities. Under the 2007 regulation, an advisory board member received a monthly stipend of around Rp 17.5 million.

An additional dozens of billion per year for just the Presidential Advisory Board would already be difficult to justify under the best economic circumstances. But this becomes indefensible against the broader policy landscape.

The administration approved the raise after beginning its term with a sweeping austerity decree that ordered cuts to public spending totaling hundreds of trillions of rupiah. Civil servants were instructed to cut down operational expenses, cancel seminars, and conserve office stationery. The government constrained fiscal transfers to local governments and ordered state universities, regional hospitals, and public infrastructure funds to absorb significant cuts. The public was asked to sacrifice for fiscal discipline. Meanwhile, the palace quadrupled the cost of its counsel.

Inherently, advisory councils are not problematic. A president who actively seeks diverse expert perspectives outside his immediate political party is desirable. But when his advisory circle reaches this size, the public has reasonable grounds to ask whether these appointments are meant to produce sound policy or serve as a comfortable landing pad for retired political elites. A quick review of the appointee list — like a former coordinating minister and retired police and military generals — might suggest these positions often serve as political consolations rather than functional think tanks.

If these 43 advisors are to justify their drain on public resources, their work must be subjected to public scrutiny. Taxpayers have a right to know the basic operational metrics of these councils. How frequently do the advisors convene as a collective body? Do these advisors produce concrete, written recommendations, and if so, are those documents accessible to lawmakers in the House of Representatives, journalists, and the public? What measurable policy outputs have they produced during their tenure?

These are not trivial; they are central to executive governance. Major national initiatives under Prabowo’s administration have frequently arrived as abrupt public pronouncements rather than visible output of structured policy deliberation.

We don’t dispute the President’s right to seek counsel. But taxpayer-funded advice should leave a public trail. The Presidential Advisory Board, the Special Advisors, and the National Economic Council should publish regular reports on their meeting agendas, the policy questions referred to them, and executive summaries of the advice they delivered. Strategic intelligence and sensitive national security discussions can remain confidential, but the daily output of state-funded advisory bodies should never be treated as a secret.

The public deserves to know what counsel their President receives and exactly what they pay for.

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In September, Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung met with New York City (NYC) Mayor Zohran Mamdani and exchanged remarks at the U20 Mayor’s Summit. Among the things they discussed were municipal bonds — debt securities issued by governmental entities to finance infrastructure projects — and how NYC historically used them to build the Big Apple into what it is today (the best city in the world, according to a new Oxford economics study).

Municipal bonds had already been on Pramono’s radar for some time. In a July meeting, he said Jakarta plans to issue Rp 3.5 trillion in 7-year bonds starting in June 2027. Since then, the planned amount has risen to Rp 5.2 trillion.

Decentralization optimists see the policy as a step toward real fiscal autonomy in Indonesia, with other localities watching closely to see how it plays out.

Before Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa was removed from the Finance Minister post, he questioned why Jakarta wanted to issue loans, since the city administration is by far the richest province in the country.

Pramono responded that the provincial government must find new ways to source income amid repeated budget cuts to central government transfers. “After all, the Jakarta government knows its own needs. Purbaya said Jakarta has a lot of money. But we are also being told to build a lot, and building takes money,” explained the governor.

Pramono has a point. Since the new millennium, a variety of new laws have reshaped the relationship between the central and regional governments after three decades of authoritarian rule under President Suharto. Among them was greater local fiscal autonomy.

Read our volume about decentralization and local fiscal autonomy:

22 years ago, Law No. 33/2004 on Financial Balance Between the Central Government and Regional Governments (HKPD) gave local governments a clear legal route to borrow from the public. Article 57 states that regions “may issue regional bonds in Rupiah on the domestic capital market,” and that the proceeds must go to “public sector investments that generate revenue and benefit the community.”

Yet, despite over two decades of legal breakthroughs and amendments, no regional government has ever dared to issue its own loans, or at least until Jakarta does so next year.

What does this really mean for Jakarta and the country’s other local governments? In this edition of The Reformist, we’ll cover why Jakarta is opting to borrow, lessons learned from NYC, and the paradoxical reality that this income source may be available only to a select few localities.

Why Jakarta wants to issue bonds

When you look at Jakarta’s total annual budget, especially compared with the other 37 provinces, Purbaya may have been right. Why must Jakarta, a local government with a regional budget (APBD) of Rp 81.32 trillion, take on loans when its budget is two and a half times larger than West Java’s, the second-largest economic budget in the country?

Pramono has cited at least two reasons: (1) narrowing fiscal space from budget cuts, and (2) public transport financing.

This year, the central government slashed Rp 14.5 trillion of annual cash transfers to Jakarta, depleting the province’s budget from Rp 95.3 trillion to Rp 81.32 trillion overnight. A couple of weeks back, Jakarta’s budget agency further decreased the budget to Rp 79.6 trillion after final accounting measures.

These austerity measures follow a pattern set by the current administration since President Prabowo Subianto first came to power. In 2025, President Prabowo issued his first presidential decree, slashing central government transfers by 5.5 percent from Rp 919 trillion to 849 trillion. This year, the central government has since cut the transfers again by Rp 716 trillion.

Pramono and Jakarta saw this as the final straw, prompting the idea of issuing municipal bonds to exercise fiscal independence.

The second, more forward-looking reason is financing public transit. This raises questions, since public transportation is almost always a loss-making business venture. It barely makes any profit, is hard to establish, and is difficult to maintain. How would the province then pay back the loan?

Jakarta’s bus network, TransJakarta, for example, depends heavily on the provincial government to subsidize its operations. This year, TransJakarta received Rp 3.75 trillion to cover the difference between its subsidized user fare and its actual price.

Since 2005, TransJakarta has increased its fares only once, from Rp 2,000 to Rp 3,500, despite two decades of inflation. To put the numbers in perspective, Jakarta’s minimum wage has risen by over 600 percent since 2005, from Rp 819,000 to Rp 5,73 million. The actual cost of TransJakarta ridership is estimated at around Rp 13,200 per rider, meaning the Rp 9,700 difference is fully subsidized by TransJakarta and, by proxy, the provincial government.

Read our volume on TransJakarta:

Only recently, in late September, did a governor finally dare to rip the band-aid and announce that fares will be readjusted at the beginning of next year.

And this should be okay! Because despite public transport being a costly public good, it is highly beneficial for a city and its people. The more people use public transportation, the more agglomeration occurs, spurring up economic activity in urban areas. One Universitas Indonesia study estimates that every Rp 1 trillion endowed for TransJakarta generates Rp 3.2 trillion in national economic output. Ridership has also grown year after year.

Last year alone, public transportation ridership across all modes eclipsed 461 million passengers, even though over 70 percent of Jakarta citizens still primarily use private vehicles.

This means there is still plenty of potential. Yet operational costs are the smaller problem. Suppose fares and a healthy subsidy cover buses, drivers, and fuel. They still would not pay for a new LRT line or a new bus fleet. That is capital spending: huge sums up front for assets that serve riders for 30 to 50 years. No fare, however well set, can raise that money in the year it is needed.

For example, the existing 15.7-kilometer MRT line, which connects Central and South Jakarta, cost the provincial government Rp 16 trillion. It received initial capital from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through a 40-year loan, with a burden-sharing scheme that involved a 49 percent grant from the State Budget (APBN) while the rest of the loan is paid off through Jakarta’s ABPD.

A generous gesture from the central government, but one that is dependent on its benevolence. A similar price tag appears in the recently inaugurated 12.2-kilometer Manggarai–Kelapa Gading LRT line, which needs around Rp 12.1 trillion in capital funding.

This is the problem municipal bonds help to solve. A bond lets a city borrow today and repay over decades, spreading the cost across the people who will actually use the asset.

Governor Pramono has revealed that Rp 2.7 trillion from the Jakarta bonds would be used to extend the Manggarai–Kelapa Gading LRT route to Dukuh Atas, further connecting the city. The remaining Rp 2.9 trillion would finance the Sumber Waras Hospital project, which has been delayed for over 14 years.

The public transit financing logic applies to many other capital-heavy infrastructure projects with minimal profit margins. Public goods like hospitals (as seen through Pramono’s pledge), schools, and social housing require upfront capital to kickstart construction; municipal bonds can help provide it.

How NYC used bonds to build a connected city

In the United States, over 50,000 local governments and institutions participate in the bond market. The US is also the country where municipal bonds finance almost two-thirds of cities’ infrastructure and urban development. Among their many uses, municipal bonds often fund new public transportation infrastructure.

Perhaps the most famous use case was the creation of the New York City subway system. In 1894, the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act, allowing the city to borrow money and build a subway it would own. The first contract, signed in 1900, priced the project at US$ 35 million or roughly Rp 25 trillion in today’s money. An independent contractor then used this capital to build and operate the subway system under a franchise for 50 years.

By 1908, the subway and other public works had pushed New York close to its legal borrowing limit. Rather than stop building, New Yorkers voted for more. In 1909, the legislature and New York citizens approved a constitutional amendment by referendum. The amendment meant that debt used to fund self-paying projects, like the subway, no longer counted toward the limit, freeing up about US$ 120 million for new lines.

But, as you can see today, everything worked out in the end. When the subway first opened, the New York Subway had a single 14.6-kilometer line — shorter than Jakarta’s MRT today — and carried 150,000 passengers on opening day. Today, the network spans 399 kilometers across 28 train services and 472 stations, carrying nearly 1.3 billion trips a year and reshaping the city.

To Mamdani, Pramono explained Jakarta’s plan to issue municipal bonds to finance the capital city’s public transportation projects, prompting the NYC Mayor to commend the initiative and note that New York has historically used municipal bonds to fund similar projects, including the New York Subway.

Jakarta has clearly taken inspiration from New York, given Pramono’s candor to Mamdani. If Jakarta aims to become a city like the world’s number one, it must build its public infrastructure, with municipal bonds as a driving force.

A systemic barrier for Indonesia’s (other) local governments

Among the other responses, Mamdani told Pramono that New York would be more than happy to offer technical assistance to help Jakarta kickstart its loans. But despite optimism from both sides, if the New York team dug further into the details, it would quickly realize that the Indonesian system makes regional borrowing even harder than it looks.

For one, the US federal system does not require localities to seek federal approval to issue municipal bonds. By contrast, Indonesian localities must seek approval from both the Finance and Home Affairs Ministry to issue regional bonds. This is a hurdle Jakarta is currently facing.

In terms of taxation, the US federal government allows local states and cities to apply a variety of taxes as they see fit. NYC, for example, collects its own personal and corporate income, sales, and property taxes — to name a few. In fiscal 2025, the city documented over US$ 111.6 billion in total revenue, with 68.6 percent coming from city taxes.

On paper, Jakarta looks similar. About 66 percent of its 2025 revenue came from its own sources. But other provinces don’t share that luxury. For the median Indonesian province, that number drops to 41.2 percent, according to our calculation based on Finance Ministry data. Another major difference is that New York City gets to choose its own taxes, including a city income tax.

Jakarta’s taxes, like those of every other Indonesian locality, are predetermined under Law No. 1/2022 on Financial Relations between the Central Government and Regional Governments (HKPD) — the most recent amendment to the original 2004 Law.

Under this Law, local governments (both provincial and municipal) are entitled to only a few types of taxes, most of which are land- and asset-driven. Large-scale revenue sources like the Value Added Tax (VAT) are fully controlled, while personal and corporate income tax disproportionately favors the central government. See the graph below for the breakdown.

This has left local administrations reliant on annual cash transfers from the central government. Essential infrastructure projects, public transit, school renovations, and teachers’ salaries are only financially feasible if the central government’s budget allows.

As we’ve cited before in a previous volume:

This makes borrowing risky. Repaying loans from an unstable revenue source becomes a gamble, especially when the central government has shown it is willing to cut transfers without deliberation to prioritize its own national agenda.

Worse, the central government returns less than the Law’s tax-arrangement formula. Taxes meant to be redistributed to localities must first be collected by the central government through a revenue-sharing fund (‘DBH’). In 2025, the country collected over Rp 593.9 trillion in non-corporate income tax, covering all income tax except what companies pay on their profits.

At the 20 percent regional share, around Rp 118.78 trillion should have gone back to regional governments. But this wasn’t the case. Under Presidential Regulation No. 118/2025, the personal income tax DBH was set at just Rp 15.2 trillion, or 2.6 percent of the entire DBH pot for the 2026 fiscal year. According to Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD) Executive Director Herman Suparman, this goes against the HKPD Law.

For Jakarta, its income tax DBH was slashed by 66.3 percent, from about Rp 21 trillion to Rp 7 trillion, despite being the country’s largest economic contributor.

But while Jakarta has chosen to explore the municipal bond route to ease fiscal pressure, the provincial government can also source 66 percent of its income independently. The Jakarta government has also planned ahead, currently preparing a rainy-day fund to cover future debt repayments.

If the rest of the country follows suit, it will need to plan carefully and tread lightly to avoid borrowing beyond its means.

Jakarta should be safe to proceed with its plan

While loans offer fast and easy capital, they must be managed intentionally so they do not bankrupt a city. This issue matters especially in the Indonesian context, where tax arrangements heavily favor the central government.

Thankfully, the HKPD Law’s implementing regulation (Finance Minister Regulation No. 87/2024) sets a ceiling on how much local governments can issue in municipal bonds. Regional debt of all kinds, existing plus new, cannot exceed 75 percent of the previous year’s revenue that the region is free to spend. This means net income excludes money such as earmarked transfers from the central government, a portion of vehicle and cigarette taxes, hospital revenue, and more.

Municipal bonds also have a minimum Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) of 2.5. In plain terms, this means a region’s annual income must be 2.5 times its annual debt payments to avoid bankruptcy risk.

The proposed Rp 5.2 trillion Jakarta bonds show how far the province is from the limit. Compared with the province’s Rp 79.6 trillion budget, the total loan would make up only about 6 percent of the city’s total budget.

Add to that no other local government has ever issued its own loans, and any limits provision will have no significance for now. Perhaps in a few years, The Reformist can return to this topic with a richer discussion of regional debt management.

Is borrowing always bad?

It has been 22 years since the 2004 Law laid the foundation for local governments to source their income independently through new means. This isn’t because they haven’t tried. Before Pramono’s Jakarta bonds plan, then-West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil floated the idea of municipal bonds in both 2020 and 2023, but to no avail. In 2024, West Sumatra similarly tried to issue loans, and things never went beyond the planning stage.

Jakarta has also tried to issue loans before: in 2011, then-Governor Fauzi Bowo planned to issue Rp 1.7 trillion in municipal bonds, but his successor, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, scrapped the idea. In what is now a viral clip of the former governor turned president, he asked, “Why use bonds? What are bonds? They’re debt. Why are you so fond of borrowing when we have plenty of money ourselves?

But as seen in the US and NYC, borrowing doesn’t automatically equate to bad governance. In fact, it is quite the opposite, especially when done correctly and used for infrastructure the masses use and enjoy.

Are you pro or against municipal bonds? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Writer/researcher:

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On 22 September 2026, Singapore-based BDx Data Centers announced the construction of AI Campus 2, better known as CGK4. It is a 640-megawatt artificial intelligence campus in Jatiluhur, Purwakarta, about five kilometers from the Jatiluhur Dam.

Two months earlier, on 28 July, West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi and Purwakarta Regent Saepul Bahri Binzein laid the first stone, calling the site safe from natural disasters and a step towards Indonesia’s digital sovereignty. But it is worth scrutinizing what the provincial revenue agency said about why the CGK4 is being built near Jatiluhur: the area has enough electricity and clean water.

Of all the justifications, that last one deserves a second look. BDx said the project will work with the state utility company, PLN, and the local water provider, PDAM, and promises that supply won’t disturb household needs. But the water that makes Jatiluhur attractive to a data center is the same water that irrigates nearly a quarter of a million hectares of paddy fields, fills most of Jakarta’s taps, and keeps alive the villages rebuilt around a reservoir that once drowned their homes.

As the story develops, Governor Dedi recently halted this project because of its missing environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) and building permit (PBG), and demanded proof that its water use would not cut into supplies for farmers and residents who depend on Jatiluhur.

But building a data center next to a critical public facility needs more than an environmental impact assessment because it carries real social risk.

CGK4 is marketed as clean, hydro-adjacent, and job-creating. But without enforceable water priority, public disclosure, and genuine benefit-sharing, it risks becoming an unjust transition, with a global commodity like AI compute placed on top of a local commons just as El Niño intensifies.

Civilizations by the river and the social cost of the Jatiluhur reservoir

Mesopotamia flourished between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Egypt along the Nile, Harappa along the Indus. West Java is no different. If we trace the Citarum River far enough back, it ties to Tarumanagara, its namesake kingdom. From its earliest written record, statecraft in this region has focused on managing water: the Tugu inscription records King Purnawarman ordering a canal dug around the river for irrigation and flood prevention.

Similarly, Bandung was founded on a riverbank. Regent Wiranatakusumah II moved the capital from Karapyak (today’s Dayeuhkolot) to the banks of the Cikapundung. The colonial town used the river as an ornament. Yet the river that made the city later became its drain. Bappenas now lists Cikapundung as the city center’s main drainage channel and an outlet for domestic and industrial waste.

Although hundreds of kilometers away, Cikapundung is one of the Citarum’s 13 main tributaries and joins it at Baleendah. From there, the Citarum runs through three dams: Saguling, Cirata, and finally Jatiluhur. The water travels as far as Purwakarta, and Jatiluhur is where it all meets.

Construction of the Jatiluhur Dam began in 1957, and it was inaugurated in 1967. Its reservoir covers about 8,300 hectares and stores 2.44 billion cubic meters. It runs a 187.5 MW hydropower plant, irrigates some 242,000 hectares, and is called the backbone of national food security. It also supplies about 80 percent of Jakarta’s raw water.

But Jatiluhur’s social cost went largely unnoticed. Filling the reservoir submerged 14 villages and moved 5,002 people to its shores and to Karawang. Those who stayed rebuilt their lives on the water.

IIn 1974, families whose farmland had gone under started making their living from floating-net fish cages. A whole economy grew around them: hatcheries, feed shops, boat ferries and household fish processing, much of it run by women. Then the cages outgrew the lake. By late 2022, official counts put 46,270 cage plots in the reservoir, about four times the 11,306 allowed under a West Java Governor’s regulation. So the state reversed course, ordering clearances under Presidential Regulation No. 15/2018 that carried serious social risks for everyone who depended on the fishery.

Those were the two times Jatiluhur people have been affected by two waves of “national interest”. After the dam’s construction displaced them, the clean-up took away the livelihood they rebuilt.

Now the CGK4 AI campus might become the third wave.

Water should stay a public good

We tend to treat water as if the supply never runs out. Political ecologists such as Erik Swyngedouw and Karen Bakker argue that scarcity is produced locally, not just by nature. It is rarely just about rainfall; rather, it’s a decision-making process about who gets water first when there isn’t enough.

On paper, Indonesian law has already solved this. In a 2013 ruling, the Constitutional Court struck down the 2004 Water Law and set five limits on commercial water use: (1) business use must not undermine people’s rights; (2) the state must fulfill the right to water as a human right; (3) management must protect the environment; (4) water stays under absolute state control; and (5) priority for commercial use goes to state and regional enterprises. The replacement, Law No. 17/2019, still allows private users, but under stricter licensing and priority rules.

Like other natural resources, water is tested during the climate crisis. In October 2023, Jatiluhur surface fell to 93.77 meters above sea level, below the 94.44-meter crisis line set by its operator, Perum Jasa Tirta II (PJT II), and about 14 meters under its normal maximum. The pattern recurs this year, as PJT II data show the reservoir dropped from 106.79 to 99.37 meters between 8 June and 5 August, and by 31 August it stood at 96.34 meters. BMKG expects El Niño to last into early 2027.

Chart 1. As Jatiluhur fell 10 meters, a 640 MW data center broke ground 5 km away

Reservoir water level (2026) meters above sea level. Last public reading 31 August; vertical lines mark the BDx data center groundbreaking and halt.

Downstream, 10,673 hectares of rice in western Indramayu were at risk of crop failure by late July, and farmers were asking for Jatiluhur water to be released. Closer to the dam, police have been trucking clean water to Desa Babakan Cikao in Purwakarta, where wells have run dry. On 27 September, police delivered water to about 200 families in Desa Kutamanah, on the reservoir’s own shore, who had been short for roughly three months. It’s a lingering irony that people closest to Indonesia’s largest reservoir are waiting for water trucks.

So where do local people sit? While PJT II insists the reservoir can still meet every user’s needs until the end of the year, allocation follows a hierarchy in practice: Jakarta’s piped supply first, then irrigation and industry, and last the households on wells nearest the dam.

Even Jakarta’s officials admit that the stress shows first in shallow wells, not in the pipes. Yayasan Amerta Air Indonesia’s Hotmauli Sidabalok has warned that data-center water demand could turn this into environmental injustice, pitting a basic human need against industrial cooling. However, the question of environmental impact assessment remains largely undisclosed.

Other countries show where this can lead. In 2023, as Uruguay went through its worst drought in 74 years and Montevideo’s tap water was mixed with brackish estuary water, Google planned a data center in Canelones that would use about 7.6 million liters a day, the domestic use of 55,000 people. Its projected impact stayed hidden behind a confidentiality clause Google insisted on, until local researchers sued to see it.

Protesters answered with a slogan that is a political-ecology thesis on its own: No es sequía, es saqueo. It’s not drought, it’s plunder. In Querétaro, Mexico, eight of eleven aquifers are overexploited, and families in nearby Viborillas get water three days a week, while well concessions keep industry supplied. In neither place was scarcity simply natural.

A closer look at the promise of CGK4

The hydropower promise

CGK4 will rise to six buildings over about three years. The first will deliver 120 MW of IT capacity in phases from early 2027, using direct-to-chip liquid cooling for racks of up to 500 kW. The headline partnership is hydropower. But the company’s own statement says power will come through the state utility PLN, while a hydro arrangement with PJT II is only being “actively pursued.” An Indonesian trade outlet put it bluntly: the hydro option is still being explored, so it would be wrong to say CGK4 runs on Jatiluhur’s power.

A bit of math shows why: running at full load all year, 640 MW of IT capacity would use about 5,600 gigawatt-hours. PJT II says Jatiluhur’s plant produces about 830 million kWh, or 830 gigawatt-hours, in an average year. The full campus would need almost seven times the dam’s entire output. Building 1 alone would need more than the dam produces, and that is before accounting for cooling energy.

Chart 2. The data center would need 3.4 times the dam’s own hydropower capacity

Installed or design capacity, megawatts. Its water need (384 L/s at full build-out) equals about 2.1% of the raw water Jakarta takes from Jatiluhur.

This means most of CGK4’s electricity will come from the Java–Bali grid, which still runs mostly on coal. So “hydro” may end up as more of a label than an energy source.

Moreover, hydropower has an El Niño problem. In 2024, drought drained Zambia’s Lake Kariba to about 8 percent of usable storage, forcing the country to shut its Kariba North Bank station while daily power cuts stretched to 20 hours. If CGK4 does sign up for Jatiluhur hydro, a simple question follows. In a dry year, who gets cut first: the data center, other grid users, or the irrigation releases that farmers depend on?

The employment promise

The employment promise deserves the same scrutiny. Official statements speak of 2,000 to 3,000 jobs for a Rp 3.5 trillion first phase. However, most construction work is temporary, and permanent data-center jobs are few and require high skills. In Johor, 51 approved projects together account for about 7,561 skilled jobs, roughly 150 per project.

West Java legislator Maulana Yusuf welcomed the jobs amid more than 10,000 layoffs in the province this year, but he asked whether they are worth the project’s impact, and demanded an open environmental assessment and guarantees for farmers’ irrigation water.

Mexico offers a sobering comparison. In Querétaro, big tech firms have promised jobs by the thousands, yet one Microsoft facility employed only 64 people in 2025. Data centers are highly automated, and the market does not warrant a huge transfer of skills, but rather electricians and security guards.

An implementation gap?

Proponents said that Indonesia’s permitting system is meant to prevent harm. So are the rules for coal and nickel mining, which also look impeccable on paper.

The Citarum has long been branded one of the world’s most polluted rivers despite decades of regulation. And when Maulana asked colleagues across the West Java People’s Representative Council (DPRD) about CGK4’s permits and AMDAL, he said most of them knew nothing. This means the gap lies not in the law but in implementation, disclosure, and enforcement.

To be fair, there are real benefits. Domestic compute supports data sovereignty. Direct-to-chip cooling can use far less water than evaporative towers, if the heat is released through dry coolers. An inland, low-hazard site reduces disaster risk, and a large, steady customer can justify grid investment. But none of these benefits is guaranteed to reach the people living beside the reservoir.

Towards a just transition

In the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) 2015 guidelines, a just transition means decent work, social dialogue, and social protection. At Jatiluhur, it has to mean a bit more: a fair share of water and power, openness about who gets to see the data, and recognition for the people already displaced by the dam and the cage clearances.

Other places offer a menu of options. Malaysia stopped approving high-water-use data centers and now requires reclaimed water instead of the public supply. Ireland — where data centers use almost a quarter of the country’s electricity — froze new Dublin grid connections in 2021 and reopened them only for those who bring their own generation (and source at least 80 percent of their demand from new renewables).

In Chile, residents of Cerrillos took Google to an environmental court, which in February 2024 ordered its permit re-evaluated for climate change and aquifer risk. Google said it had already switched to air cooling. In Hamina, Finland, Google’s seawater-cooled data center gives its waste heat to the town’s energy company for free, enough to meet an expected 80 percent of local district heating.

The warning comes from Memphis, where xAI ran dozens of unpermitted gas turbines next to Boxtown, a neighborhood already facing four times the national cancer risk.

So what would a just CGK4 look like? At the very least, here are five recommended commitments:

1. A published water budget, with no reservoir or municipal water used for cooling.

2. A binding drought clause: when Jatiluhur falls below the crisis line, the data center cuts back before irrigation or households do.

3. New renewable capacity, with co-benefits for local people.

4. A public environmental assessment and a monitoring board that includes fish-cage households and farmer water-user groups.

5. Local hiring targets and a benefit-sharing fund tied to electricity consumed, directed to restoring the upper Citarum.

Guarding Jatiluhur people’s source of life

Tarumanagara dug canals, Bandung was founded on the Cikapundung, and Jatiluhur displaced five thousand people from their hometown so the nation could have rice and electricity. Each generation’s infrastructure has been built on the same river, and on the people alongside it.

The proposition CGK4 puts forward is not whether it should be built; it asks whether this generation will repeat the old bargain, where locals carry the costs and distant users enjoy the benefits. Or shall we give them the benefit of the doubt that they will honor the Constitutional Court’s principle that water belongs to the people first?

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Since July, fires have engulfed hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests in the islands of Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua, marking what appears to be an annual disaster. Year after year, the cycle repeats: news of large forest fires appears in national media, millions of lives are endangered, citizens across the country demand that the government do something, the government promises to act; then months pass without significant reform, and the cycle of negligence continues.

Or read the article:

While these horrors can be called an ecological crisis, they are by no means natural. Forest fires in Indonesia were, are, and will always be man-made disasters if the Indonesian government continues along its path of environmental malpractice.

But fires, in and of themselves, aren’t the main culprit. The culprit is the extractive and exploitative agroforestry industry that uses legal loopholes to expand concessions and maximize profits at the cost of the local environment.

This episode connects the dots between the centuries-long tradition of using fire to clear land and how it has been misused today to exploit land for corporate interests. Because traditional practices are easy, fast, and cheap, burning has become the go-to method for land-clearing in the agroforestry industry, especially for palm-oil companies. Add peatlands dried out over decades by ineffective food estate programs, and the problem has grown to the scale we see today.

The government should have acted decades ago; the next best time is today. Watch this episode to learn what these imminent reforms could look like.

What should we cover next for the future Second Thoughts episodes? Drop your suggestions in the comments or by replying to this email!

Early in 2025, the Constitutional Court annulled the 20 percent presidential threshold requirement in Article 222 of Law No. 7/2017 (Elections Law). Together with an earlier 2023 ruling that mandated the House of Representatives (DPR) to revise the 4 percent parliamentary threshold proportionally for the upcoming 2029 elections, the Court presents a rare opportunity to reimagine Indonesia’s electoral framework, effectively dismantling artificial barriers that guarded national politics for decades.

These rulings must guide the House’s current revision to the Elections Law to reflect proportional representation and constitutional fairness. Yet, Senayan has signaled a parliament scrambling to protect its status quo rather than honoring the spirit of the ruling. Instead of accepting the end of the threshold era, lawmakers are actively floating new, convoluted mechanisms designed to maintain their gatekeeping privileges.

1. Status quo’s defense of the 4 percent parliamentary threshold

For years, the political establishment has defended the 4 percent parliamentary threshold using the “effective governance” argument. The claim relies on the premise that limiting the number of factions in parliament prevents extreme fragmentation; making it easier for legislation to pass. Preventing deadlocks is a valid rationale for a multi-party presidential system like Indonesia’s, but Indonesian presidents have built large coalitions that cover most of the House.

Current President Prabowo Subianto’s KIM Plus coalition covers 81 percent of seats in Senayan. Jokowi’s second-term governing coalition also reached 81.9 percent. These facts suggest that using effective governance as an excuse to impose high barriers to entry only justifies consolidating power among a handful of major parties.

This gatekeeping creates massive democracy costs; over 17 million votes never translate into seats in the 2024 general election. Out of roughly 151 million valid national votes, the 4 percent threshold required a party to secure approximately 6 million votes to enter the legislature.

The United Development Party (PPP) secured 5.87 million votes, or 3.87 percent of the national total. Because they fell a fraction of a percent short, the party was entirely wiped out of the House for the first time in about 50 years. As a result, nearly 6 million citizens cast valid ballots for a party that earned enough votes to win seats in some districts, but still had no representation at the national level.

They weren’t the only ones. The Indonesia Solidarity Party (PSI) also had 5 candidates would have been seated if only the party clear this threshold. This shows a democratic system that intentionally discards the voices of millions of voters. If a candidate wins the majority of votes in their district, they should be able to secure the seat at the parliament. A higher threshold risks losing the essence of proportional representation in an electoral democracy.

After a Constitutional Court ruling highlighted the disenfranchisement caused by the 4 percent threshold, the ruling parties’ response has been spectacularly tone-deaf. Instead of recognizing the need for more proportional barriers, parties like Gerindra and Golkar have floated proposals to raise the threshold to 5 percent. Nasdem has pushed the boundary even further, suggesting a 7 percent threshold. These defy all democratic logic. If a 4 percent erased 17 million votes, a 7 percent threshold would silence many many more citizens..

We think these suggestions have nothing to do with effective governance or legislative efficiency. They are overt attempts by incumbent cartels to shrink the political arena, eliminate smaller challengers, and divide the legislative pie among an ever-shrinking circle of elites.

We do not have to look far to see that democracy functions just as well without these barriers. At the subnational levels, Regional People’s Representative Councils (DPRD) operate entirely without a parliamentary threshold. Parties win seats directly proportional to the votes they gather in their electoral districts. PSI has exactly 1 seat in various local parliaments. No mainstream discourse suggests that local governance is failing because of excessive party fragmentation; at least none that we’re aware of.

If the proportional system works across Indonesia’s regions to capture the diverse political will of local populations, there is no reason it cannot work nationally. The insistence on a national threshold is a manufactured necessity.

2. Inventing a new gatekeeper in a recent presidential threshold maneuver

The Court’s ruling on the presidential threshold being unconstitutional is also at risk of being similarly thwarted by lawmakers desperate to maintain their leverage. With the 20 percent barrier struck down, emerged in recent discussions in the House an entirely new hurdle: requiring a presidential ticket to be backed by a coalition of at least two parliamentary factions.

This requirement blatantly disregards the Court’s mandate. The ruling should be interpreted as a clear directive that parliament cannot arbitrarily add thresholds to limit candidates. If a single party has the confidence, the internal machinery, and the public support to nominate its own candidate, it should not be legally forced into a marriage of convenience.

Forcing a minimum two-faction coalition is purely political maneuvering. It exists to guarantee that the major parties remain indispensable brokers in every presidential race. It forces transactional politics, where policy platforms take a backseat to backroom deals over cabinet seats and resource allocation. By trying to invent new rules to replace the old ones, the parliament is signaling that it views the electorate not as constituents to be represented, but as obstacles to be managed.

The House should choose meaningful democracy

The House of Representatives now faces a choice. Lawmakers can accept the Constitutional Court’s rulings as the foundation for a more mature, representative democracy; or they can keep treating election law as an incumbent protection racket. Interpreting the rulings in good faith means rethinking the arbitrary 4 percent parliamentary barrier, rejecting the proposals for higher thresholds, and stopping the invention of backdoors like the two-faction presidential rule.

It is time to come to a truly open, proportional, and fair electoral framework. If a party wins a district, they deserve a seat. If a party wants to nominate a presidential candidate, they should face the voters, not a coalition gatekeeper. Anything less betrays public trust in our democratic process.

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10 August 1995. Seven days before Indonesia’s independence commemoration day. In Bandung, thousands gazed at the sky as the N250 Gatotkaca readied for its maiden flight.

Across the archipelago, millions more watched on television, from government offices to roadside warungs, as TVRI broadcast the moment nationwide through the Palapa satellite network.

For many Indonesians, it was perhaps the closest thing to an Apollo moment. It was as if the country itself had just landed a person on the Moon. The N250 was, of course, no Saturn V. Yet, for a country at Indonesia’s then-level of income and technological development, the achievement felt like an income-adjusted equivalent.

Even reasonable skeptics of Indonesia’s aerospace ambitions could not easily dismiss what they had just witnessed: the country had successfully designed and flown its own commercial aircraft. Thanks to the then-Research and Technology Minister (later President) B. J. Habibie.

Taufiq Kiemas’ reaction was especially revealing. A prominent figure in the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) — and husband of party chair Megawati Sukarnoputri — Kiemas had frequently criticized the industrial policy projects associated with Habibie. Yet, Kiemas attended the N250’s maiden flight in person and reportedly wept as the aircraft lifted smoothly from the runway. It was a small but telling indication of how significant the N250 was as a symbol of both national pride and unity.

The N250 seemed to also embody the confidence of the era. As the aircraft gathered speed along the runway, Indonesia itself appeared poised for takeoff. The economy was growing at 8.2 percent in 1995, industrialization was rapidly proceeding, and the end of the Cold War had ushered in an extraordinary period of optimism about globalization and the prospects of emerging economies.

As capital poured into Southeast Asia and the region’s convergence with the industrialized world became durable, Indonesia was a prospective Asian Tiger, following South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore as rapidly industrializing economies.

Indonesia was finally enjoying somewhat of a honeymoon period in its long arc of history.

Or so we thought. Just three years later, the honeymoon was over. The economy collapsed, the political order that had governed Indonesia for three decades fell, and the N250 program was dismantled before reaching commercial production.

The aircraft that had once represented Indonesia’s technological ascent was confined to a hangar. It would never fly again.

It all went downhill after the 1997 crisis

The 1997 Asian financial crisis did more than deprive the N250 of financing. Fundamentally, it radically transformed the political and institutional environment in which Indonesia’s aerospace program had been built.

As Indonesia turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency financing amounting to US$ 43 billion, continued support for aerospace company IPTN, which produced the N250, became part of a broader renegotiation of the country’s development model. The IMF-supported program required withdrawing budgetary and extrabudgetary support for the company and dismantling key fiscal mechanisms that had sustained it.

The conventional argument was that IPTN was expensive, Indonesia was still poor, and the resources devoted to aircraft development could have been better spent elsewhere. In a stronger version, Habibie’s aerospace ambitions were portrayed as an extravagance that helped push the country toward bankruptcy.

Yet, the claim that the N250 was expensive is rarely expressed relative to the size of the Indonesian economy. Development of the aircraft required roughly US$ 650 million. Spread over the development period from 1989 to 1998, this amounted to only about 0.03–0.04 percent of GDP per year. Of course, that didn’t establish the program as a good and effective industrial policy. But that estimate did make it difficult to prove that N250 was a significant macroeconomic burden whose cancellation was necessary to resolve the crisis. By comparison, the eventual fiscal cost of bank restructuring after the 1997 crisis approached 39 percent of GDP.

Dennis de Tray, the World Bank’s country director for Indonesia during the crisis, later acknowledged this distinction. Looking back on the 1998 reform package, he said that IPTN was “relatively unimportant in an economic sense,” suggesting that withdrawing support mattered primarily as a signal intended to restore investor confidence.

This thus begs the question: if IPTN was economically relatively unimportant, why was it targeted so explicitly? Part of the answer lies in the intellectual and political climate of the 1990s. Under the prevailing Washington Consensus, industrial policy like IPTN had become deeply unfashionable. Governments were increasingly expected to liberalize markets, reduce discretionary intervention, and let market signals discipline capital allocation.

A central presumption was that governments could not reliably “pick winners”: directed credit, infant-industry protection, subsidies, and support for targeted sectors were therefore treated with considerable suspicion.

IPTN represented a very different development philosophy, closer to the Hamiltonian state-involved industrialization strategies historically pursued by Japan and South Korea and, later, by China: the deliberate attempt by the state to build domestic technological and productive capabilities through subsidies and directed credit. IPTN therefore mattered beyond its immediate fiscal cost. It became a symbol of a broader development model that sat very uncomfortably with the dominant policy orthodoxy of the 1990s. In this sense, the dispute over IPTN was also a dispute over whether developing countries should retain the ability to conduct ambitious industrial policy at all.

To be fair, this skepticism had some basis in Indonesia’s own experience. Much of the country’s import-substitution drive in the 1970s and early 1980s produced protected industries that remained inefficient, lacked technological learning, and were weakly exposed to international competition.

Yet it is too crude to place IPTN in the same category. Unlike many earlier protected industries, IPTN did generate substantial technological learning and accumulated human capital. Its commercial performance was of course debatable, but the underlying capability-building process was real.

Many features of the New Order economy plainly required reform–it was long overdue. The more contentious question was whether to attempt a sweeping institutional restructuring in the middle of an exceptionally severe financial crisis.

Economists across the spectrum raised this concern, including Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Feldstein. Feldstein, the former chief economic advisor under the United States President Ronald Reagan, argued that many of the IMF’s structural reforms might be desirable in themselves, but warned against using the currency crisis to force fundamental institutional changes that were not necessary to resolve the immediate balance-of-payments problem. He described undertaking such reforms “in the midst of a currency crisis” as particularly poor timing.

The IMF’s own retrospective assessments — through its Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) — later echoed part of this criticism. Its post-crisis literature recorded concerns that Indonesia’s January 1998 program had become overloaded with structural conditions whose connection to the immediate foreign exchange crisis was often remote, and that the effort to signal reform could itself undermine confidence by making the program appear implausibly ambitious. IPTN became one of the most visible casualties of that effort to remake Indonesia.

Industrial policy revived, but not our potential

The rest, as we know, is history. IPTN survived the crisis as PT Dirgantara Indonesia, but only as a shell of its former self. Employment fell from roughly 16,000 at its peak to around 4,000 after successive restructurings, while the company never recovered the engineering depth or indigenous commercial aircraft development capability associated with the N250 era. Much of the technical talent accumulated over decades — including engineers trained at leading institutions abroad — was dispersed, with some later joining foreign firms such as Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer.

My father, Endri Rachman, was a former IPTN engineer. He earnestly shared his testimony with a journalist about why he chose to leave the country after IPTN’s restructuring. The journalist's verdict:

“A series of meetings with him made one thing clear: Endri Rachman cannot fairly be called ‘unnationalistic,’ short on ‘national spirit,’ or, worse, a ‘traitor to the nation’. Driven by determination, he tried to return to the homeland to build his own aircraft factory in Bandung, without the slightest help from the government. I repeat: without the slightest help from the government!”

The irony is that the policy logic behind Habibie’s experiment has since become remarkably conventional. What was once portrayed as an eccentric form of state-led development is now standard practice across much of the world: governments subsidize strategic industries, protect critical supply chains, and finance technological upgrading.

Industrial policy has returned to the center of economic policymaking. Even institutions once deeply skeptical of such interventions, including the World Bank, now treat industrial policy as a legitimate area of economic policy, albeit with renewed emphasis on discipline, competition, institutional design, and measurable performance. Indonesia itself has reentered this terrain through downstreaming, electric vehicles, and other strategic sectors.

From this perspective, Habibie’s central premise seems less anachronistic than it did in the 1990s. It was the right idea at the wrong time: His ideas reached their zenith during an era when the prevailing international policy consensus was moving decisively against state-led industrial development. And to be fair, the problem was also deeply institutional. Many of his projects were implemented through a highly centralized political system, with weak mechanisms for competition, accountability, private-sector participation, and exiting failure.

Today, Indonesia’s contemporary industrial policy remains preoccupied with capacity rather than capability. The focus is extensively on the headline numbers: how many smelters are built, how much investment is attracted, and how much output is produced.

Habibie’s industrial projects, for all their flaws, aimed at a deeper objective: accumulating engineering capability, human capital, and technological learning. Their execution was often imperfect, and their institutional architecture was vulnerable to the New Order’s political economy. Yet, the underlying objective was capability accumulation.

In that sense, the N250’s most consequential legacy may be what Indonesia forgot after its cancellation. Over the following three decades, industrial policy gradually returned, but much of the institutional knowledge associated with building indigenous technological capability did not. In its place, the Indonesian state has resorted to instruments such as local content requirements and export bans, non-fiscal measures that divert the cost of industrial policy from the state to the private sector; perhaps bound by the trauma of attempting anything as ambitious as the N250 program, for fear of being accused of bankrupting the state.

What disappeared with the last flight of the N250 was not just an aircraft program, but rather a particular conception of development. It is the idea that Indonesia could deliberately acquire the organizational and engineering capabilities required to design, integrate, and eventually master complex technologies. As the country now rediscovers industrial policy, the harder task is to recover that ambition without reproducing the same institutional weaknesses that undermined it 28 years ago.

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The second episode of our “Second Thoughts” video series on this topic drops this week on our YouTube channel.

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Read this passage and think about when this diagnosis was made:

“The forest and land fires that engulfed vast areas of Indonesia were an unprecedented human and ecological disaster. A prolonged dry season caused by the El Niño climatic phenomenon created the conditions for the conflagration. But the fires were mostly ignited deliberately by plantation companies and others eager to clear forest land as rapidly and cheaply as possible, no matter what the consequences.”

If you think this was an international news report from a month ago about the forest fires in Kalimantan, you would be wrong. This diagnosis was the opening paragraph to a policy paper on the fires of 1997.

Titled “Trial by Fire,” this World Resources Institute (WRI) report from 2000 detailed the root causes behind the fires that engulfed over 10 million hectares of forest in Indonesia. The answer? Land clearing for agroforestry plantations, namely oil palm. It has now been 26 years, and yet their analysis still rings true.

As of August 2026, over 202,000 hectares of forest are burning in oil palm-rich Kalimantan. The resulting haze has made living in the region deadly for the millions of Indonesians on the island.

At its peak in early September 2026, the cities of Pontianak and Palangkaraya in West Kalimantan reached 507 micrograms per cubic meter of pollutants, making the air hazardous to breathe. As of 24 September 2026, both cities remain hazardous to live in because of fire-related pollution, according to air monitoring data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). Not only at home, but neighboring countries have also been affected as smoke spreads to Malaysia and Singapore.

While the forest fires were an ecological disaster, they were by no means natural. As this edition of The Reformist will cover, Indonesia’s forest fires are — and have been — a direct byproduct of a lackluster forest management ecosystem, including legal loopholes that manipulate customary practices and the economic exploitation of land clearing for the monoculture palm oil industry.

The loopholes in the law

Indonesia has banned land clearing by fire since 2009. Article 69(1)(h) of Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management (‘UU PPLH’) states it in one line: no person may clear land by burning.

The Forestry Law (No. 41/1999) carries up to 15 years for deliberate forest burning. The Plantation Law (No. 39/2014) bans the practice outright for plantation operators. On paper, the question is settled.

But a complication sits just one subclause below. Article 69(2) of UU PPLH requires that the ban “give serious regard” to local wisdom:

The law’s own elucidation defines what this provision allows: Fire can be used only for a maximum of two hectares of land per household, planted with local varieties, and ringed by firebreaks so the fire cannot spread.

The provision exists to honor local farming traditions, as indigenous people have used fire to manage land across the archipelago for hundreds of years before the concept of Indonesia came to be. Scientific evidence even dates burning done by humans in East Kalimantan to at least 17,500 years ago, as prehistoric settlers used forest fires to clear land for agriculture.

But if we read the three conditions against modern oil palm concessions, the mismatch is obvious. No large corporation would hold concessions below two hectares; it just doesn’t make economic sense. Oil palm is also not a local monocot (it arrived from West Africa). And the land in question is often drained peat, where fire doesn’t stay inside a firebreak as it travels underground.

So, the exception cannot protect a concession holder. It can, however, protect an individual and smallholders, and that is where the complications for accountability start.

Last month, law enforcement named 72 suspects in Kalimantan for forest burning.

One of them, identified in a report as BS, allegedly set fire to twelve hectares in Tanjung Batu, Pulau Derawan, East Kalimantan. According to police, BS acted on a landowner’s instructions to prepare the land for oil palm plantations by burning it, on the practical grounds that ash fertilizes soil.

That particular case is unproven, and the person giving the order was an individual, not a company.

Despite playing into the loophole, UU PPLH actually anticipated this. Article 88 established strict liability: Anyone whose activity poses a serious environmental threat bears absolute responsibility for the resulting damage, without the plaintiff needing to prove fault. The point was to ask “whose concession burned,” not “who lit it.” A permit holder could not escape by pointing at a farmer.

But then came the Job Creation Law (UU No. 6/2023 or ‘UU Ciptaker’), passed under former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration. The Law rewrote Article 88 of UU PPLH, deleting the phrase “without needing to prove the element of fault.” Instead, it delegated this requirement to the same elucidation that existed in the original Law.

The big caveat, however, is that in Indonesian law, legal elucidations do not translate to legal norms. This is why courts have since split on what the provision now entails, creating a large legal gray area that only further complicates cracking down on troublesome agroforestry companies.

The numbers show the result. Searching the Supreme Court’s decision directory for the phrase “kebakaran hutan” (forest fires) returns 1,185 first-instance criminal decisions, dating back to 2007.

Criminal decisions for forest fire cases peaked in 2020 at 304 cases, roughly double any other year, after the catastrophic 2019 fire season. The 2015 fires, which burned 2.6 million hectares, produced 86 decisions the following year. Compare those numbers against the scale of what burns annually, and the ratio speaks for itself.

However, the directory cannot tell us how many fires those cases cover, whether the penalties were ever paid, or where the money went.

If there is one low-hanging step of legal accountability the government can take amid endless backlash over the last month, it is to open Pandora’s box. Show the people how effective — or rather, ineffective — the legal system has been at cracking down on these fires. Only then can citizens begin to trust that corporate crackdowns actually mean anything.

The economics of fire

But the legal question only answers part of the problem. The other, more sinister, is the economics of burning forests to acquire land concessions. It’s no secret that most forest fires are concentrated in concessioned areas, particularly palm oil plantations.

Shortly after the fires of 2015, one of our editorial staff members went to the peatlands of Jambi, Sumatra, with the World Resources Institute (where she previously worked). The question put to a local resident there was simple: If everyone knows this will cause a fire, why still use fire?

The answer was equally simple: It has always been done this way. Other methods cost far more and aren’t always possible because heavy machinery cannot reach much of this terrain.

They were right. Modern estimates show that clearing land with fire costs only between Rp 50,000 and Rp 90,000 per hectare. In contrast, heavy-equipment land clearing can cost between Rp 1 million and Rp 15 million. Faced with this kind of gap, the rational choice is to burn.

But that cheapness is an illusion, because these costs rarely cover the negative externalities attached to them. One study estimated the cost of damages from the 2015 fires was twice that of the 2004 Aceh tsunami. From last month’s disaster, the fires have led to more than 72,000 acute respiratory infection cases in the third week of August alone

For the actors involved, however, every step is simply profitable. One study follows this trail in the Riau province. Degraded secondary forest, usually already illegally logged, is claimed and sold for about US$ 113 per hectare (Rp 1.61 million; 1 USD at that time = Rp 14,200). The land is then cleared and given paperwork to look legitimate, then resold for US$ 655 (Rp 9.33 million). Burning it — to get it planting-ready as fast and cheaply as possible — costs US$ 15 (Rp 213,554). Three years after the oil palm goes in, that same hectare is worth US$ 3,077 (Rp 43.8 million).

From Rp 1.61 million to Rp 43.8 million, that is roughly a twenty-seven-fold return.

Meanwhile, GAPKI, Indonesia’s palm oil producers’ association, has argued that the arithmetic is not so simple. Why would companies use fire if penalties for corporate burning can reach Rp 1.8 billion per hectare, which would dwarf any saving on land clearing?

This argument would be persuasive if the penalties were reliably collected. The only time the Environment Ministry (then the Forestry and Environment Ministry) announced successful legal proceedings against agroforestry companies was in 2023, when the government won judgments worth roughly Rp 5.6 trillion.

Early this year, in May 2026, President Prabowo Subianto and the forestry task force established last year, known as Satgas PKH, staged a ceremony marking Rp 10.27 trillion in fines collected and 5.9 million hectares of forest area recovered from “dirty” agroforestry companies.

Despite the hefty numbers, critics warn the recovery effort had underlying intentions. Some 4.12 million hectares of that seized land were given to Agrinas Palma Nusantara, a state-owned palm oil and biodiesel company, rather than designated as a natural forest. The process was also hasty and lacked public oversight. The regulation meant to govern these land handovers wasn’t issued until seven months after the seizures began.

The move felt like a land grab dressed up as forest restoration, showing that current laws fail to effectively curb bad actors. As this section shows, this may be by design.

The government and the palm oil industry are closely entangled through concessions and through campaign financing. Last year the industry recorded record exports of US$ 40 billion and contributed 3.5 percent of the country’s entire GDP. The larger the economic stake, the stronger the disincentive to enforce.

When enforcement does happen, it isn’t a shocker to see senior public officials dragged down along with the naughty corporate leader. For example, in 2007, the owner of the palm-oil Surya Dumai corporate group, Martias “Palm Oil King” Fangiono, was convicted after being found guilty of collusion with the local government to secure the clearing of forested land for palm oil concessions. The then-governor of East Kalimantan and several senior Forestry Ministry officials were also brought down.

Behind every business tycoon that breaks the law are public officials who gave it the green light.

Disincentivizing fire

If burning is a rational response to the price signals in front of a land clearer, then the policy question is not simply how to ban it harder. It is how to change the economic incentives behind the entire forest management ecosystem.

Here are six initiatives the government can do:

First, fund the local governments that actually manage each forest. Spatial planning, plantation supervision, fire response, and community protection all happen at the district and provincial level, and all of them are chronically under-resourced. A national crackdown enforced by one ranger per 26,000 hectares is an inefficiency in the making.

Second, supervise on-the-ground operations. The questions that matter are whether a concession’s canals are draining its peat, whether its firefighting equipment works, and whether fire keeps recurring in the same concession year after year. All three are measurable, and the last one is already visible in satellite data long before it reaches a courtroom. For permits still in process, the sustainability standard should bind at site selection, not be waved through afterward.

Third, make the permit trail public. This includes who owns the concession, where its boundaries run, what permits it holds, and whether villages or customary territory lie inside it. Right now, none of that is reliably available to the people living next to concession lands. The One Map policy, first introduced in 2010 under then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), was meant to resolve this issue, but it still leaves overlapping claims and competing map versions circulating between ministries. Early this year, in January, Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Nusron Wahid urged completion of the map within the next two years, suggesting the program is far from finished. What a travesty that three consecutive administrations, across 16 years, have failed to muster the political will to finish an imperative product.

Fourth, prioritize peatland restoration. As this article covers, drained peat can lead to uncontrollable burning. Canals must be blocked or managed, land rewetted, and planting matched to the peat’s condition rather than forcing the peat to match the crop.

Fifth, reduce the economic pressure that puts people near the match in the first place. Poverty drives smallholders to take up the work of forest burning, and the evidence is stronger than most people expect. Research by Johns Hopkins University and The Nature Conservancy in 2020 found that Indonesia’s conditional cash transfer program (PKH), designed purely for health and education outcomes with no environmental objective whatsoever, was associated with deforestation reductions of up to 30 percent. Expanding the program to concession-rich areas, in coordination with the Social Affairs Ministry responsible for PKH, should be considered.

Lastly, a more appropriate long-term model leaves the extractive mode behind for something restorative, regenerative, and redistributive. Protecting forests does not mean halting economic activity. Agroforestry, non-timber products like coffee, nutmeg, honey, and bamboo, paludiculture on wet peat, community-based ecotourism, and payments for environmental services. All of these generate income precisely because the forest is still standing.

The “Trial by Fire” report named the economic incentives, the governance failures, and the enforcement gaps in 2000, and every subsequent fire season has reaffirmed these findings. What the country has lacked is a willingness to make burning so unappealing that no bad actor even thinks about touching it within a ten-foot pole.

It’s time we put the fires out for good

“For more than three decades, since the exploitation of Indonesia’s forests began in earnest, key policy decisions related to forests (and almost everything else, for that matter) have been tightly controlled by small groups of unelected officials and their patrons in the large cartels that have dominated the economy.”

While this paragraph would have been an apt concluding analysis for the latest forest fires, it wouldn’t have been original. Because — surprise, surprise — this excerpt came from the same 2000 report we cited at the beginning of this article.

So while our present analysis looks back at “Trial by Fire” with 26 years of sorrow and anguish, especially the Indonesian government’s lack of action to govern wisely and effectively, our analysis is anything but novel.

Forest fires in the country have been the focus of analytical research by environmental activists, economists, and technocrats for far longer than most of you reading this have been alive. And yet for over half a century, inaction is still the leading cause behind tackling this persistent and pervasive issue that has and will cost millions of lives not just in Indonesia but regionally.

Perhaps our one question to the Indonesian government then is: If not now, then when? The time to act should have been decades ago; the next best time to act is now.

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For months, PT Bayan Resources Tbk (BYAN), the coal miner controlled by billionaire Low Tuck Kwong, could not get the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) to approve its revised annual production plan (‘RKAB’) that sets the company’s production quota. With no quota, Bayan had to stop producing and declared force majeure on its overseas delivery contracts.

While conglomerates like BUMI and Adaro may be larger, Bayan’s coal sits closer to the surface, resulting in the lowest overburden removal costs in the industry and exceptionally high profit margins. This makes it highly vulnerable to regulatory holdups and attractive to opportunistic buyers.

Bayan’s controlling shareholders then signed a conditional agreement to sell a large stake to PT Jhonlin Baratama, an entity linked to Andi Samsudin Arsyad, a politically connected businessman, also known as Haji Isam. The reported price was well below market. Within days, ESDM gave Bayan’s subsidiaries up to 20 million tons of additional quota, and the company withdrew its force majeure notice and resumed operations. Notably, the newly minted state investment agency, Danantara, did not absorb this lucrative stake for the public benefit. Instead, it was secured by Haji Isam, who is a principal campaign financier for President Prabowo Subianto—leaving market observers to draw their own conclusions about the ordeal’s true purpose.

An ESDM official told the press that the timing was coincidental and the result of routine administrative processing. But that’s not how the market reads it. As far as they could tell, the quota came through because of political alignment; technical compliance had little to do with it.

South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the Bayan case left an “unpalatable aftertaste” for investors, leaving market participants worrying about uncertainty over regulatory decisions and future government interventions.

This isn’t the first state takeover case

Bayan is not the first company to face this issue. A pattern emerges across the archipelago in which the state uses its regulatory power to push operators into distress and then toward targeted asset transfers or state absorption.

The Martabe Gold Mine in South Tapanuli, North Sumatra, is one of the country’s best gold assets. PT Agincourt Resources, a subsidiary of Astra International’s United Tractors, operates it. After severe floods in Sumatra late last year, the government’s Forest Area Regulation Task Force (‘Satgas PKH’) put Agincourt on a list of concessionaires facing immediate permit revocation over alleged environmental compliance failures.

Experts raised concerns about the Satgas PKH’s revocation list, saying the task force can only audit and recommend, but it doesn’t have the authority to revoke a mining company’s permit. Officials with legal authority must make the revocation decision. Meanwhile, Danantara’s Chief Operating Officer, Dony Oskaria, said the Martabe’s mining rights would be given to a newly established state-owned mineral company under Danantara, PT Perminas.

However, due to strong pushback from international investors, the government paused Martabe’s revocation, and the asset now sits under administrative “reassessment.” But while the government paused the revocation of the Martabe mine due to swift pushback from international investors, domestic tycoons have faced the full brunt of the policy. In January, the government abruptly revoked the permits of 28 companies across Sumatra, spanning over one million hectares.

Smaller operators run into their own versions of this. In South Sumatra’s coal corridors and Central Kalimantan’s mineral belts, independent operators have faced sudden holds on haul-road permits, port access, and forest clearing approvals. A recurring pattern emerges where independent operators face sudden, indefinite holds on their approvals, leaving them little choice but to sell equity to well-connected national or regional figures.

The government must be more transparent

This is not to say that large conglomerates or foreign-owned operators deserve protection. Big companies — owned by domestic tycoons or multinational parents — must comply with the law like anyone else. A company that breaks environmental standards, misses its local processing obligations, or avoids taxes should face firm enforcement.

But that enforcement has to come through due process, with transparent legal proceedings and equal treatment under the law. Enforcing a statute is one thing. Holding up permits until an asset lands with a favored buyer is another. If officials can decide on their own who may hold an asset and who must sell, the regulator stops acting as a referee and starts deciding who gets access to the sector.

If the state really wants to reclaim badly managed concessions or earn more from its natural resources, it has to replace this discretionary model with a transparent one.

Why not put all concessions up for auction

An asset should be returned to the public domain when its concession holder loses its operating rights due to a legal or environmental breach. It should go to an open tender and not be reassigned through an opaque administrative process or closed-door negotiation. Bidders at a public auction would compete on clear criteria, such as higher royalties for the treasury, binding guarantees for environmental remediation, and verified technical capability.

Making concession management public would break the rent-seeking cycle, because permits given behind closed doors create a trade that suits both sides. Politicians use regulatory bottlenecks to raise campaign money or win commercial stakes for allies, and companies focus on buying political patronage instead of running their operations better or improving their environmental record.

But it’s the public who pays for this in the long run. When approvals depend on patronage, country risk rises, and foreign investment falls. That raises the cost of capital across the economy. It pushes serious investors — the ones who bring technology, ESG compliance, and long-term capital — elsewhere, leaving the market to short-term rent-seekers.

Restoring institutional credibility means taking arbitrary leverage away from executive agencies and running the extractive sector on open, rule-based governance.

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Ahmad Dhani, his Wonder Woman wife Mulan Jameela, his Roman Picisan vocalist Once Mekel, his Aku Jadi Aku co-composer Melly Goeslaw, and his son’s LDR castmate Verrell Bramasta. What do they all have in common?

They’re all rich celebrities — yes — but what we’re here to discuss today is that they are all currently sitting members of parliament (MPs). Our dear and esteemed political representatives. The people who make the laws that govern us.

“Gosh, no wonder our politics is a joke,” I hear you mumble under your breath. What will be of our country? What do these people know besides sounding or looking pretty on our screens? Have they even read a book in their lives?

Well, you may not be entirely wrong, but being smart isn’t mutually exclusive with being a good representative. If you disagree, this piece will likely disappoint you. And while I’d love nothing more than to join the bandwagon of making fun of politicians, what I’ve observed so far has led me to believe we really need more celebrities in parliament.

And no, I’m not kidding. In fact, I have never felt more serious than I am right now as I start jotting down my thoughts on this.

But why?

When this Prabowo administration started, I had a list of legislative bills that I suspected would get fast-tracked. But I’d be lying if I said that the Copyright Law amendment even made my long list. It has now been shot to the top of the parliament’s political agenda, largely thanks to the celebrity MPs who sit in parliament today.

What began as petty arguments between a few famous composers and performers had snowballed into a debate that at first seemed super technical: royalty payment.

Read this Reformist volume on music royalty if you’re not up to speed yet:

And while things have gotten a tad bit more complicated now — with artificial intelligence getting in the mix — the bill has proven one thing: an agenda can only be a priority when the people debating it have a real stake in the decision.

Don’t get me wrong. Copyright is a serious matter that should concern us. In today’s economy, however, the fact that these celebrity MPs have managed to champion a bill that concerns, first and foremost, their own livelihood is actually what they’re supposed to do with the power that they’ve accrued, which is to (surprise!) represent.

Have we gotten it all wrong?

The short answer is “no.” The long answer is “no, but we might have been guilty of underestimating celebrities who run for office and overestimating our own ideals.” By the end of this article, I’ll prove you’ve been guilty of one, both, or neither.

In the current House of Representatives, there are at least 23 MPs who made (or still make) a living in the entertainment industry, earning them a ‘celebrity MP’ status. That list includes the names I mentioned at the beginning of this article, alongside:

• dangdut singers Ashraff Abu and Iyeth Bustami;

• ABG heartthrob Tommy Kurniawan, Panji Manusia Millenium Primus Yustisio, Gerhana damsel-in-distress Dina Lorenza;

• Citra nominee Nurul Arifin, Citra winner Rachel Maryam;

• comedians Eko Hendro Purnomo and Denny Cagur, quizmaster Nico Siahaan;

• Perwira and Ksatria star Dede Yusuf, racer Moreno Soeprapto, supermodel Arzetti Bilbina;

• Ungu frontman Sigit “Pasha” Purnomo, Tenda Biru chanteuse Desy Ratnasari, Cinta Semu rapper Uya Kuya, Hati yang Kecewa minstrel Nafa Urbach, and Bajaj Bajuri sweetheart Rieke Diah Pitaloka.

If your gut reaction is to feel sad and concerned that these are the people representing our — the public — interests in parliament today, you’re not alone. After all, it only makes sense that the most capable among us occupy these high-stakes seats. If we took these celebrities from Senayan, everything would’ve been so much better, and politics wouldn’t be so frustrating.

… Right?

Of course not. But how many of you reading this have made fun of celebrities winning legislative elections before? Ahead of the 2024 elections, pundit Lucius Karus was quoted by many news outlets, including the BBC, as seen above, saying “They can sing, act in movies, joke on stage, but they’re not capable [of serving] as legislators.”

I’m not saying that they haven’t earned the cynicism. Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyati, then-chief of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), made a good case. “We have seen time and time again that some of these celebrity politicians do not take their new responsibilities seriously,” she said, concerned that “some of them still perform shows or appear in commercials.”

To an extent, I agree with these observations. But perhaps something else here needs closer inspection.

Why do we deride celebrity MPs so much?

I don’t know if there’s a single reason to explain why celebrities, collectively, are seen by many, if not all of us, as incapable, incompetent, or unfit for office. Hopefully, at least one of the following three hypotheses represents your view.

1. Celebrity MPs are shallow vote-getters

Even without the usual campaign posters and banners polluting the streets, many are already familiar with them. It’s almost unfair. If a regular politician has to spend billions to be acknowledged by the voters in their electoral district (‘dapil’), a celebrity joins the race having already built a ‘fanbase’ at best or a sense of familiarity at worst. This phenomenon earns them the permanent mark of a ‘vote-getter,’ meaning someone political parties nominate for no other purpose than to win as many votes as possible so they can pass the 4 percent parliamentary threshold.

In a country where celebrity news gains so much attention that it becomes an industry of its own — the ‘infotainment’ — any celebrity seeking to run in elections has an upper hand that other candidates don’t. Yet as we’ve already established, popularity is a disadvantage just as much as it is an edge.

Desy Ratnasari has a PhD in Psychology from Atma Jaya, with a dissertation on gender equality. But when she began her third consecutive term, some felt it was more appropriate to focus on the fact that she’s a widow.

Rieke Diah Pitaloka, also on her third consecutive term in parliament, graduated cum laude from Universitas Indonesia with a PhD dissertation on data governance. But, unsurprisingly, what makes the news is either her Instagram outfit or skincare regime.

This isn’t to say they represent most celebrity MPs, but they’re not outliers either. Beneath the glams and flashes, these celebrities are just like the rest of us. They are not a monolith defined by one thing. Ahmad Dhani is a controversial rockstar but also a Sufism observer. Nurul Arifin is a bona fide movie star but also a women’s rights activist.

I can go on, but I think I’ve made my point. Their visibility gives them a slight edge, but it also creates a problem the rest of the field doesn’t have to deal with (at least not as much): voters who assume their celebrity status automatically means a lack of depth.

2. Celebrities are in it for themselves

My next hypothesis is that people see celebrities as this group of rich, greedy opportunists who are using politics for their personal gains.

What’s another Rp 100 million a month for Melly Goeslaw, who in March 2025 posted on Instagram about receiving almost six times that from her collective management agency (‘LMK’) in royalties thanks to her massive pop song catalog.

But why are we so outraged about rich celebrities taking up space in parliament when the cost of politics in Indonesia is impossibly expensive? A research project I co-edited for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) in 2024 estimated that the median cost of securing a parliamentary seat in Indonesia is 5 billion rupiah per candidate. For the average Indonesian, that’ll take 140 years of earning the national median income of Rp 36 million (annually) without spending a dime to afford a successful campaign. Well, at least theoretically.

My point is not that we should just sit idly by while politics continues to be a game exclusively reserved for and by the richest among us. Even the Finance Ministry’s most modest estimate still came out to Rp 1 billion in average spending per candidate — and that’s without even a guarantee of winning a seat.

Imagine spending that much money for a job that wouldn’t even earn you a net return after serving a full five-year term.

The argument that celebrity MPs are in it for themselves doesn’t hold up once we look deeper into the matter. What if it’s not as simple as a financial calculation? And while you’re at it, ask that same question to everyone who decided to run for Senayan, not just the celebrities.

3. Celebrities don’t have what it takes to make laws

Well, yeah, but it’s not like the remaining 557 MPs in parliament today are the most revered policy experts either.

Let’s get to the real point.

Representation is competence itself

Our political debate has completely missed the mark on this one. Every election season, we get into this heated debate over who is the most competent candidate to give our votes to. And every other election season, we bicker with online trolls and exit the unbearable family WhatsApp group chat because their political choices are not reflective of someone who prioritizes competence.

Deplorable.

Hold your horses. Entertain me for a second here. For every job out there, including being an MP, competence is never a fixed mathematical equation defined by a universal formula. By default, we expect competence to align with things like higher education, relevant experience, good standing, inspirational speeches, statistical mastery, language proficiency, and so on.

This is fair in most jobs, but in democracy — where the most valuable capital is a vote — I beg to differ. Competence comes in many facets, some of which will feel morally deprived and downright wrong.

Visiting the slums that never get attention, having photo-ops while climbing down into the sewers, slowing down your speech patterns so some voters relate better, plastering your face on rice bags so they remember who fed them that day, looking pretty while waving around on a campaign trail, organizing dangdut concerts at a village that only knows survival — all of these shouldn’t be dismissed as ‘cheap theatrics’ just because they don’t fit the list of skill sets we believe are necessary to run for public office.

If politics is a matter of who gets what, when, how — as American political scientist Harold Lasswell titles his seminal 1936 book — then celebrities have proven their competence for the job simply by winning in their dapil. Whether those who lost are more credible, have advanced degrees, and bring decades of public service does not change the fact that these celebrities have been chosen to represent. That, in and of itself, is the only competence that matters.

That, unfortunately, is the bitter truth. I don’t like it. Not at all. But not liking something isn’t enough to bring about change.

Every nation gets the government it deserves

“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.”

A popular quote by Joseph de Maistre of Savoy, a historic region now in southeastern France. Often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson, many have misused it to shift the blame from a broken system to bad individual choices.

A counter-revolutionary, Maistre believed that a monarch is divinity itself and therefore should not be challenged. He did not mean that we are individually responsible for our own miseries, and it was never about voting in elections. Well, at least not in the way that we perceive it today. His writing, which I think would get him instantly canceled if published today, was much deeper: that a political system cannot be artificially engineered. Instead, he argued, whatever government rules a society is a direct mirror of the spiritual and moral state of its people.

But what does this have to do with celebrity MPs?

The celebrity MPs have proven one thing: if you want your priority to take precedence, then put your hand in it. Otherwise, we’ll keep relying on the people we’ve elected to represent us. Unfortunately for us, though, what they eventually represent doesn’t always align with what we believe when we make our decision in the voting booth.

Think about the three hypotheses I’ve presented above. We constantly undermine celebrities in politics because they’re shallow. We predetermine that celebrities are only in it for themselves. We reject celebrities because they’re not competent.

And despite all that, they are in parliament. And, as we’re witnessing with the advancement of the Copyright Bill, they are moving their priorities to the top of the political order.

Now I don’t assume that The Reformist readers are all the same. Each of us has different things we want to prioritize. For activists, it may be to pursue social justice. For women, it may be to be safe from violence. For the Indigenous people, it may be to protect their ancestral lands. For every one of us, it may only become a priority if we throw our hands in.

So, yes, I wasn’t joking when I wrote that we need more celebrities in parliament. But also more activists, even if everyone thinks that’s selling out, just like the celebrities who are shallow vote-getters; more women, even if their political party only nominates them to fill the 30-percent quota, just like the celebrities who are only in it for themselves; and more Indigenous people, even if their traditional wisdom does not come with fancy degrees, just like the celebrities who don’t have what it takes.

Perhaps this is what we’ve been missing all along: someone with personal stakes in the system. If we want to get the Indigenous Rights Bill prioritized, let’s get more Indigenous people in parliament. If we want the Human Rights Defenders Bill legislated, let’s get more human rights defenders seats in Senayan.

Just like the celebrities who stood up for themselves for their royalties, every single one of us should too. Even if chance says we’d end up right where we started.

Do it anyway.

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Prologue

It was a fall evening in 2021. The credits just rolled at the screening of “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” at the BFI London Film Festival. Audience members of various nationalities clapped, exchanging thoughts on the film.

Any Indonesian abroad sitting in that Southbank cinema hall, one of the biggest film capitals, with critics and viewers from around the world would perhaps feel a fleeting sense of pride; or at least that’s what one of our editors here at The Reformist, who was there at that time, felt.

Vengeance isn’t even the first Indonesian film selected for screening at an international film festival. Mouly Surya’s Marlina: A Murderer in Four Acts was selected for Cannes in 2017 — the first time in 11 years that an Indonesian film was featured.

A year later, Kamila Andini’s The Seen and the Unseen won Best Feature at the Berlinale. In 2022, a year after Vengeance, Makbul Mubarak’s Autobiography was screened in London after its stellar world premiere (and award win) at Venice.

This critical acclaim and global reception are only a small fraction of the larger discussion about Indonesian films. But if you’re like us — enjoy films and believe that the Indonesian film industry should thrive more — you might share our optimism that international recognition reflects the quality of our films, made by talented filmmakers on par with their international peers, but also, and most importantly, exhibits our confidence and audacity in telling stories that are distinctly Indonesian.

After all, aren’t films cultural artifacts that represent the Indonesian identity on the global map?

Let’s tread carefully here, because this notion has historically been wielded as a double-edged sword. The government, most notoriously under former President Suharto’s New Order, has used films to control official narratives and shape national identity. But after seeing Vengeance, for example, we might think our country’s history of state control over the film industry dissipated after the end of Suharto’s rule.

After all, a story centered on a man’s erectile dysfunction and his subsequent machismo is not exactly the kind of “Indonesian values” imagined by the architects of the authoritarian dictatorship to be depicted in a film. They probably didn’t want ‘impotent’ to represent our identity. And ‘violence’ is not exactly moral.

But a deep dive into the country’s current film policies shows that Suharto’s legacy still influences how film is governed today. And with the dictator long gone, this raises the question: how does the government currently govern the film industry, and what can be done to invest in the industry’s nascent global growth?

Read along as this edition of The Reformist examines how the Indonesian government treats the silver screen through policies that shape the industry’s fate today, and how examples of state-supported innovation like South Korea could be a model for Indonesian film.

Act I: The threat

The politics of State control in film content

It was interesting to see how the government has treated films from one regime to another. For a long time, Indonesia has kept films on the periphery of its priorities. It’s plausible to assume this may be the origin of the government’s neglect of the film industry, setting bad institutional precedents we’ve unfortunately come to inherit.

Until the past few decades, the state apparatus often viewed films as a “threat to the status quo and public order,” and a tool for establishing state narratives.

This is most apparent during the New Order, which was notorious for using films to assert state-approved history. A generation of adults reading this article is perhaps still traumatized by the gory details of Pemberontakan G30S/PKI (The Betrayal of the Communists), a film that set the official narrative of what happened before Suharto rose to power. But contrary to popular belief, the New Order didn’t invent strict film censorship or the use of film as propaganda. Both were legacies from the very regime that fell in Betrayal’s ending.

In 1964, Suharto’s predecessor Sukarno released Presidential Decree No. 1/1964, mandating the Information Ministry to “foster” films as a medium for “nation-building.” Article 9 required all Indonesian films to support the country’s ideology, Pancasila. A year later, the then-Information Ministry established the Film Censorship Body (BSF), supposedly to protect the people from the film industry’s bad influence and ensure all films serve their nation-building (uhm, propaganda) purpose.

When Suharto came to power, he shared the idea that films could influence order, so the government needed to assert control through censorship. But he had a slightly different approach, which resulted in a striking paradox:

In the 1970s, Indonesian cinema began to flood with bizarre, explicitly violent and sexual films — or what film scholars dubbed “exploitation films” and international distributors labeled as “cult movies.” Titles like Bernafas Dalam Lumpur (1970) and Primitif (1978) were box office hits despite their controversial portrayals of prostitution and cannibalism.

It might seem illogical that this kind of film would proliferate in a regime infamous for heavy censorship. What were the criteria that made films with depictions of gore and sex pass censorship?

The BSF, inherited from Sukarno’s regime, reviewed every film’s theme, dialogue, and visuals against five criteria: religion, socio-political content, culture, decency, and security. On paper, any exploitation film wouldn’t get a green light for its lack of decency.

But in Suharto’s New Order, a film’s “socio-political content” and “security” aspects seemed to carry more weight in the censorship process. Films wouldn’t pass when depicting something that might incite ethnic or class conflict, or any hint of disorder that might “destabilize” the regime.

Meanwhile, films with sex and violence had room for negotiation, allowing for trims and cuts of scenes instead of an absolute ban, because these films were deemed ‘apolitical entertainment’. This is not to say that the New Order never censored or banned films for indecency. The regime repeatedly tried to crack down on decency violations with its developing censorship regimes, but its enforcement was largely sporadic or reactive to public response.

In 1992, the government’s encroaching hands in the film industry were further formalized through the passage of Law No. 8/1992 on Film (1992 Film Law). The Law kept the New Order’s emphasis on censorship that film must “foster national culture”. Or as Australian scholar Krishna Sen put it: “[this law was written by] a state that sees itself as threatened by the cultural work of its own citizens.”

The 1992 Film Law also prompted the establishment of the Film Censorship Agency (LSF), formalized through Government Regulation No. 7/1994, which still exists today.

In 2009, the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) administration replaced the 1992 Film Law with Law No. 33/2009. While it was initially pitched as the reform Indonesian cinema had been waiting for, it delivered less than promised.

The LSF survived the transition intact, still a censorship body rather than the classification body that reformers had asked for. Every film policy since 1964 has renamed the justification for controlling what Indonesians can watch without ever seriously asking whether the government should be in the content-control business at all.

In 2026, the answer should be crystal clear: no, the state has no business controlling film content if it wants to elevate Indonesia’s film quality and help the industry flourish. In fact, the key emphasis should be for the government to exit content regulation entirely and shift toward investing in the industry with strong political will and institutional support.

Act II: The tug of war

The lethargic support for a promising industry

Since Reformasi, film policy has never lived in one ministry, and inconsistent jurisdiction has also limited the industry’s investment and growth potential.

Film has always been split between an institution governing content, like the LSF, and an institution governing industry, such as the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf).

Between 1999 and 2024, film policy’s institutional home changed configuration at least four times. No single body has held jurisdiction over this policy continuously for more than roughly five years.

These changing hands have affected how the government prioritizes film. For instance, since 2015, the government’s language toward films has changed from “protecting” its people from film to acknowledging the industry’s economic and cultural potential.

This rhetoric shifted under Bekraf. Established in 2015, Bekraf’s mandate was to grow the funding, infrastructure, and market access, rather than the culture or moral instruction of creative fields. It operated under a different institutional logic than anything film had lived under before.

In 2019, Bekraf merged with the tourism ministry, becoming the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry. This move drew significant pushback. Film director Ernest Prakasa, for example, was concerned about how the combined ministry would manage a budget for both tourism and the creative industry, which has 16 subsectors. His fear was not unfounded: the sector was largely ineffective for close to a year while budget lines were untangled.

The most recent reshuffle, in late 2024, is worth examining most closely, because it changed both halves of the content and regulation sides at once. The latest ministry to house film governance — the Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Ministry — was broken into three ministries, and under Presidential Regulation No. 190/2024, the Culture Ministry is now a standalone ministry that carries the mandate to govern film policy.

For the first time, the film industry’s regulatory home is not bundled with a general education portfolio.

Good news! But is it?

Well, it does, in theory, dismantle one specific, archaic bureaucratic entanglement: housing film policy inside a ministry whose main job is to oversee the nation’s schooling system.

In practice, the doctrine that film exists to serve state-approved values doesn’t appear to have gone anywhere. At LSF’s November 2024 national meeting, Culture Minister Fadli Zon defended the institution’s continued relevance in almost the same terms Sukarno’s 1964 decree used: protecting society from film content “contrary to the values of Pancasila and national identity.”

The other half of the duality split at the same moment. The Creative Economy Ministry becomes standalone, with film being explicitly named among the five priority programs across its seventeen subsectors.

So the industry now navigates between two singular ministries that didn’t exist in their current form a year ago: the Culture Ministry holds content regulation and licensing, while the Creative Economy Ministry holds industry development and access to financing.

The inconsistency may not be incidental to the film industry’s stall. Four ministerial configurations in twenty-five years signal continuous improvisation. Yet, every handover has cost the industry a transition year of reduced institutional bandwidth. An industry that runs on multi-year production and financing cycles has been governed under ministries that might change configuration every five years.

The country’s film industry has spent too long braving the country’s “wild west” ecosystem without any armor. No wonder observers noted that Indonesia’s film industry is increasingly successful not because of government policy, but despite it.

Act III - The neglect

Film’s economic contribution to Indonesia

In fact, the country’s commercial moviegoing experience is defying global trends — recording new all-time highs of 126 million theatre admissions and 285 new feature titles produced in 2024, bouncing back stronger than expected after the pandemic comatose.

In 2024, Indonesia ranked 9th in theatre admissions worldwide. We recorded a new high of 126 million theatre admissions, the highest since 2019. As a share of admissions, Indonesia actually ranks third among the top ten market countries for regaining its pre-pandemic audience, beating out powerhouses like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

With at least 285 feature releases, we also produced 107 percent more films compared to 2023. Meanwhile, the rest of the world’s top 10, including China, the United States, India, Mexico, and Japan, saw only modest gains or even declines. Even more interesting, the Indonesian market has shown a preference for Indonesian films, with local production capturing 65 percent of the cinema market share that same year.

The industry almost has it all: it contributed Rp 81 trillion to Indonesia’s GDP and employed about 387,000 people in 2024 (according to a joint study by Netflix and LPEM UI). It has talented, award-winning industry players alongside a local consumer base with a growing movie-going culture.

But Indonesian films are still severely underscreened. With a population of 280 million, the fourth-largest in the world, the country has only 468 cinemas with 2,293 screens. This translates roughly to one screen per 120,000 people. By comparison, China (over 1 billion people) has a denser screen-to-person ratio than Indonesia, with about one screen per 15,000 people. The numbers are even staggering when compared to Indonesia’s regional neighbors. The graph below shows this discrepancy.

This shortage has left hundreds of Indonesian films competing for limited distribution slots. According to Yulia Evina Bhara of the Indonesian Producers Association (APROFI), about 400 local feature films were ready for screening in 2025, but only 150 secured slots for theatrical release because of limited available screens.

More screens would allow for more film production and for filmmakers to experiment with new themes and formats, with less worry about making “safe” films to fight for distribution slots (ones more likely to bring audiences to the cinema, which today are horror, comedy, and family drama).

But for this to happen, APROFI chair Edwin Nazir said in an interview with Variety magazine that the industry needs more players in distribution and exhibition so investors feel more confident investing. There are currently no distributors in Indonesia — strange — so film producers negotiate with cinema chains directly, and three big players make up over 80 percent of the whole country’s cinemas.

In an ideal world, our film ecosystem would allow enough screens to release both films that cater to market taste and preference and those that are bolder, whether in their themes or artistic expression, eventually converging the critical and commercial film tracks into one successful film industry.

Nazir put the industry’s own diagnosis on the record: “It’s about time for Indonesia’s film industry to have public production funds, tax incentives or rebate schemes, and other policies that will promote growth.” That is a producer, at the height of the industry’s best years on record, saying plainly that growth arrived ahead of policy, not because of it.

Act IV - The benchmark

Lessons from South Korea

If Indonesia were to choose a path to meet its potential, what would it look like?

South Korea offers a replicable model, not because its culture or market resembles Indonesia’s, but because its government solved its institutional problem. It governs film under a belief that film matters, economically and culturally, and invests in infrastructure that would outlast any administration.

In 2006, South Korea issued the Promotion of the Motion Pictures and Video Products Act, or the Yeong-Bi Act (yeong-hwa: film; bidio: video). This Act mandated the establishment of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) to enhance domestic film quality and promote the film industry. Although housed under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, it operates independently to manage the Motion Picture Development Fund.

With this fund, KOFIC develops policies and helps finance the country’s film industry across the board: surveys, research, education and training, production, infrastructure and technology expansion, export and overseas expansion, and even tracking cinema admissions and archiving films.

The fund has historically been a mix of government injections and a 3 percent levy on ticket sales. Although the Korean government abolished the levy to reduce ticket prices on top of significantly reducing its budget allocation to the film fund, KOFIC still managed over US$ 500 million in 2024.

Indonesia, in contrast, has it all mixed up. The country has had several film development institutions in place with no clear long-term objective. The now-defunct Bekraf once championed the Akatara program, an investor-filmmaker matchmaking forum, while the Creative Economy Ministry has only ever reported having “facilitated” or “helped expose” filmmakers to funding access.

Currently, there exists a Rp 6 trillion Cultural Endowment Fund managed by the Endowment Fund for Education Agency (LPDP). The fund, currently disbursed via Dana Indonesia Raya (previously Dana Indonesiana) under the Culture Ministry, is a culture-wide program and is capped at Rp 200 million per grantee for filmmakers. In other words, no dedicated endowment fund similar to KOFIC’s Motion Picture Development Fund currently exists.

Interestingly, the 2009 Film Law actually established an independent body akin, in principle, to KOFIC called the Indonesian Film Board (BPI). BPI is tasked with strengthening the foundation and advancing the film industry. It is formed and administered by industry representatives, and only “facilitated” by the government.

Article 69 of the 2009 Film Law gives BPI broad mandates to support film research and development, education and training, promotion, and financing; plus, to hold domestic and international festivals. But BPI isn’t equipped to carry out these mandates.

In fact, BPI’s own Head of the Public Policy Department, Rommy Fibri Hardiyanto, has written in Kompas.com lamenting the board’s lack of agency. He said that BPI doesn’t have the organizational design to do what it’s meant to do. It lacks a permanent organization, a sustainable funding source, and even the operational authority to function as the law mandates.

He urged that the ongoing revision to the 2009 Film Law learn from KOFIC’s model (he also mentioned France’s National Center for Cinema, or CNC) and consider rethinking BPI’s organizational model. It doesn’t need to be identical to KOFIC or CNC, but it should be an independent “film ecosystem manager.” It needs enough authority and funding to make decisions that sustain itself without being heavily influenced by regime change.

Giving BPI a larger operational mandate is imperative if we want a reliable governing body that can administer long-term programs, especially since it already sits independently outside any film policy-governing ministry. Meaning, future changes to the current ministry configuration won’t greatly affect the Board’s ability to continue supporting the industry.

The newly elected 2026–2030 BPI leadership echoed Rommy’s suggestion to start an Indonesian Film Endowment Fund. They suggested the fund could mirror South Korea’s initial model by sourcing funds from ticket-sales levies, noting that cinema tickets are currently taxed (PBJT), but the revenue flows to regional governments without a clear channel back to the industry. Rommy added that the fund could also be injected from the state budget, industry players’ and philanthropic contributions, and private investment.

Epilogue

It’s going to be a pity if Indonesia’s film industry continues to go to battle without sufficient State support. New titles and filmmakers keep emerging at international festivals, earning stellar reviews and promising futures. At home, domestic films continue to dominate the market, breaking admissions records when other countries are still struggling to recoup their pre-pandemic audience. All of this despite tepid government support and the absence of enabling policies.

Imagine the government finally waking up and seeing the industry’s importance. It’s not a pipe dream for our film industry to become the country’s thriving economic multiplier and a cultural powerhouse that marks our standing on the global stage. We’ve come a long way since film was seen as a threat to the nation, and it’s been a long time coming for Indonesia to prioritize film and invest in it so it can live up to its potential.

— Fin —

What are your thoughts on the state of Indonesia’s film industry? If you’re a passionate movie-goer like the author of this article, please leave your thoughts in the comment section below!

Correction: An earlier version of this article made a labeling error on the first graph, in which we incorrectly put “Indonesia” instead of “India”.

Credits:

Writer/Researcher: Nea Ningtyas

Editors: Clara Fong, Nathaniel Rayestu, Ravio Patra, Rayhan Kalevi

Visual Designer: Liana Tan

As Suahasil Nazara takes the helm as the next Finance Minister, the market, local governments, and international observers may not be expecting a grand financial visionary. They want a competent firefighter.

The root of the issue lies in the executive suite itself. The rapid sequence of appointments reveals an administration struggling to reconcile grand political promises with fiscal reality. Sri Mulyani Indrawati was ousted when her institutional discipline stood in the way of massive flagship mandates. Her successor, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, acted as the compliant enabler—stamping every political check, shifting targets, and eroding institutional trust to accommodate the Palace’s demands. Now, Suahasil Nazara inherits the wreckage.

Instead of bold speeches promising sweeping structural transformation, Suahasil’s success will depend on fiscal triage. Can he contain these five immediate blazes before they combine into a full-blown crisis—or will he, too, be consumed by the President’s unyielding spending appetite?

1. Revenue shortfall coupled with tax refund backlogs

The most immediate fire to tame is a revenue architecture that is currently bleeding cash. Until August 2026, tax revenue reached just Rp 1,409.1 trillion, a mere 59.8 percent of the annual APBN target. With four months left to collect the remaining 40.2 percent, the shortfall highlights targets set unrealistically high to finance ambitious spending and meet the political goals of the administration.

Compounding the problem is the controversial strategy of withholding tax refunds to artificially bolster revenue figures. As businesses complain of stalled cash flows, analysts warn that holding back refunds could trigger an actual tax shortfall of Rp 80 trillion to Rp 140 trillion. This could directly harm private sector liquidity and job creation.

Amid an economy already struggling, general tax hikes are simply out of the question. Suahasil must perform a tough balancing act: find innovative ways to raise revenue and improve our ever-dwindling tax-to-GDP ratio without further burdening a fragile economy. That means focusing on structural leaks: overhauling administrative collection mechanisms, expediting digital tax integration without technical friction, and setting future revenue targets rooted in economic reality rather than political fantasy.

2. Expensive flagship political programs

The second blaze sits at the intersection of political ambition and basic arithmetic. The Prabowo administration’s flagship social initiatives, most notably the Free Meal Program (MBG) and the Merah Putih Village Cooperatives (KDMP), carry massive price tags and immense political momentum.

While the policy goals are understandable, running them without fiscal discipline threatens to bleed the national budget dry. This is where Suahasil faces his ultimate test.

These presidential flagship programs require strict budgetary guardrails: phased rollouts, aggressive independent auditing, and precise geographic targeting to prevent waste. If a program runs over budget, the ministry must have the authority to pause, recalibrate, or scale back execution. Ideology must not break the bank.

3. Pandemic-era debt maturing amid higher borrowing costs

The third is a dangerous ticking time bomb: a massive “debt wall” reaching maturity. In 2026, government debt maturity hit a peak of Rp 833.96 trillion — the highest point in the current SBN repayment cycle — compounded by Rp 154.5 trillion in maturing central bank burden-sharing bonds from the pandemic era.

Debt service interest alone is projected to swallow Rp 599.44 trillion, consuming more than 22 percent of total tax revenues. When combined with principal repayments, total debt obligations threaten to absorb nearly 45 percent of state revenue. Managing this mountain of debt in a global “higher-for-longer” interest rate environment leaves zero room for error. The challenge lies in executing this massive refinancing drive under the weight of global “higher-for-longer” interest rates. With market volatility elevated, every new bond issuance risks locking Indonesia into elevated borrowing costs for years to come.

Suahasil must execute a deliberate refinancing strategy. That involves careful secondary market management, active debt restructuring, and transparent communication with institutional investors. Restoring credibility is the single effective hedge against paying higher risk premiums. Bondholders need to know that the Ministry of Finance is once again run with steady, predictable discipline, unswayed by executive pressure to take on more expensive debt for short-term spending.

4. Friction between local governments over budget transfer cuts

Outside Jakarta, regional governments have struggled as central government transfers (TKD) have been severely slashed since President Prabowo took office in 2025.

These central funding cuts were effectively used to squeeze regional administrations in order to free up liquidity for top-down, centralized flagship initiatives. Essential local infrastructure halts, public service quality drops, and local administrations risk insolvency.

As the treasury, the Finance Minister cannot just drop the axe and walk away. Suahasil needs to balance central fiscal discipline with targeted regional support. This requires implementing conditional liquidity facilities for distressed municipalities while granting local governments broader, regulated space for local revenue autonomy. Slashing transfers without providing alternative survival mechanisms simply exports central fiscal stress to regional administrators and citizens alike.

5. Blurring of boundaries between the Treasury and the Central Bank

The final blaze to contain originated from a fundamental blurring of institutional boundaries. Under intense pressure to deliver quick wins for the administration, Purbaya’s Finance Ministry blurred the line between fiscal management and monetary intervention, notably by pouring vast sums from the accumulated cash balance (Dana SAL) directly into state-owned Himbara banks under the guise of injecting liquidity.

This was a misdiagnosed medicine for a non-existent illness. State banks were not facing a liquidity shortage; they were constrained by structural credit demand and macroeconomic risk. By treating state cash balances as a pseudo-monetary tool, the Finance Ministry crossed into central bank territory.

Suahasil must retreat from this policy overreach and return the Treasury to pure fiscal fundamentals. Crucially, he must repair working relationships with Bank Indonesia, establishing harmonious, coordinated policy channels rather than attempting unilateral liquidity engineering that unnerves financial markets.

Bringing back institutional trust

Ultimately, one of the most vital tasks awaiting Suahasil is restoring institutional trust. It’s an intangible asset severely damaged over a year of rapid ministerial churn and fiscal appeasement. Fiscal policy relies heavily on credibility, and credibility is built through measured, predictable, and prudent statements and actions.

Suahasil’s legacy will not be carved out by trying to please the Presidential Palace or by endorsing unchecked spending in the name of political harmony. It will depend entirely on whether he chooses to act as an unyielding fiscal anchor — willing to speak with discipline and say no when arithmetic demands it — and whether President Prabowo grants him the structural room to do so.

If the presidency continues to demand validation for an unsustainable agenda, even a third minister will not stop the bleed. The fires are raging, but Suahasil can only put them out if the President allows him to hold the hose.

In 2023, local governments across Indonesia suddenly became busy firefighting at dumpsites, costing taxpayers billions of rupiah to extinguish a fire at a single dumpsite.

The budget for this firefighting came from the region’s annual emergency fund, or from whatever was left of its waste management budget (already sparse, typically less than 1 percent of the region’s total budget) that should have been used instead to improve the waste management system. And the impact went way beyond these numbers in the accounting report, potentially causing prolonged health hazards for anyone caught in the smoke.

This year, we are on course for the second episode of that chaos again. As we started writing this in July 2026, the Tangerang Regency administration was busy extinguishing the fire at Jatiwaringin dumpsite (‘TPA’). Meanwhile, similar events are flaring up at other dumpsites (e.g., TPA Cipayung, ex-TPA Panembong).

Interestingly, dumpsite fire frenzy was never a topic before 2023. Today, it is emerging as a recurring theme.

The claim that the 2023 dumpsite fire frenzy is bound to recur is not without merit. This year, Indonesia is facing another El Niño cycle. It is a cyclical climate pattern (typically every 2-7 years) in which trade winds in the south shift, creating hotter temperatures, stronger winds, and lower humidity in Indonesia. These conditions are perfect enablers of dumpsite fires, as they make it easier for surface- and deep-level piles of waste to ignite.

As if the cycle itself is not enough, this year we might be facing a super El Niño, with current indicators showing that this year’s impact would be double that of 2023. Conditions are expected to worsen and peak at year-end. Therefore, strictly from a climate standpoint, dumpsite fires can only become more frequent and more intense as we approach the end of the year.

We understand that the way we have written this article so far suggests we are cursed with the uncontrollable wrath of nature. However, that is not the case.

Like any combustion process, landfill fires require (1) a trigger; (2) a condition; and (3) fuel. The trigger is the buried waste getting very hot and catching fire on its own. The condition is the environment created by El Niño. And the fuel is the methane trapped in the dumpsite piles. While the trigger and the condition are practically out of our control, the fuel is different. The presence of methane in a dumpsite is manageable and can be reduced to a significant extent.

Now, we should all ask the real question: do we want to optimize the budget to fix preventable methane emissions, or do we want to waste resources by splashing water into dumpsites every 2-7 years?

Bear in mind, the more frequent this phenomenon becomes due to inaction, the greater the unnecessary fiscal burden, the less effective the waste management system becomes, and the higher the cost to long-term public health, which can translate to declining productivity.

Why dumpsite fires are rampant in Indonesia

Here’s how fire started at a dumpsite:

Methane is a product of the anaerobic decomposition of easily degradable materials, including food waste, garden waste, and paper. At a dumpsite, this process takes place in the deeper layers of the waste pile. As a new layer of fresh waste enters the dumpsite each day, the older waste is buried deeper and deprived of oxygen, allowing anaerobic processes to take place. This process continues in a loop for years, allowing methane to build up in a dumpsite. Compounded by new waste arriving every day, this effect can be amplified by orders of magnitude.

In Indonesia’s dumpsites and waste management, this process happens at a massive scale and is messy for three different reasons.

First, food, garden, and paper waste make up more than half of the waste that ends up in dumpsites, according to the National Waste Management Information System (SIPSN); in major cities, most of it is left to rot, underscoring the scale of methane generation there.

Second, more than 300 of Indonesia’s 500 dumpsites operate under an open dumping system without a well-designed gas ventilation system, allowing methane to leak to the surface and easily ignite.

Third, waste entering landfills is mixed, so the gas is not pure methane but a complex mixture that can harm living beings exposed to it.

These nuances explain the pattern of dumpsite fires in Indonesia, which are massive, hard to extinguish, and toxic. Because easily degradable waste is the most dominant waste composition in Indonesia overall, dumpsite fires occur at many dumpsites across the country. As explained in the mechanics, this abundance, combined with widespread distribution and surface exposure under the open dumping system, allows fires to spread easily from one point to another.

Finally, burning highly contaminated methane (and other combustible waste) releases toxic fumes into the air, which, when carried by strong winds, expose nearby locals and can eventually cause at least acute respiratory issues.

From this breakdown, we can see that the root of the problem is easily degradable waste in the dumpsite, compounded by heavy reliance on open dumping systems, creating the massive hazard faced by communities. That said, to minimize the risk of dumpsite fires, we must ensure organic waste does not enter the dumpsite, and there are attainable pathways to do so.

Summoning the “gotong royong” spirit for waste management

For too long, we spent too much time pointing fingers when it comes to solving the waste crisis. The truth is, we cannot solve it unless communities, waste workers, private entities, the government, and CSOs work together.

Now that we have a critical, urgent common goal, we need to rethink how we manage organic waste. We have to shift away from our typical downstream-focused mindset and focus on the upstream.

1. Decentralization

Handling many tons of organic waste — likely to be mixed — at a centralized downstream facility is a suicide mission. Instead, we can decentralize waste treatment by leveraging the smallest possible community level to independently treat its organic waste upstream.

A proven example is the ‘Neglasari’ pilot project in Bandung, led by Yaksa Pelestari Bumi Berkelanjutan (YPBB), which integrates organic waste treatment (composting and the BSF method) with food production at the sub-district level.

This project embodies Indonesia’s “gotong royong” (hand-in-hand) spirit, where community, academia, CSO, waste workers, government, and donors collaborate to build and operate the system. In just 1 year, the project reduced its methane footprint, developed a financially viable treatment system, improved community resiliency, and created jobs (soon-to-be published report).

From a cost perspective, this approach is not merely a utopian dream of practitioners in the waste management field, but a far more cost-effective alternative to centralized, high-tech infrastructure (you can read more in detail on page 30 of the linked report). Moreover, by enabling a decentralized approach, we reduce the risk of cross-contamination and allow recyclables management to thrive as well. This adds value to the circular value chain.

2. Organic waste treatment as a part of the food system

The product of organic waste treatment was never meant to be the finished product. Instead, it should be connected to the larger conversation of the food system in the community. By connecting these dots, treating organic waste expands into the conversation of improving communities’ quality of life and is not limited to hazard prevention.

The Bandung City government has set an example by integrating two programs: ‘Buruan Sae’ (food security and urban farming program run by the city’s Food and Agriculture Agency) and ‘Gaslah’ (the city government’s program for upstream organic waste treatment). The city government spearheads this initiative, in collaboration with communities and CSOs, to drive the integration.

The idea is that households and communities in the Buruan Sae program can use treated organic waste (in the form of compost or BSF larvae) from the Gaslah program as input or feedstock for food production, ultimately creating a closed-loop food system. This shows that with the right political commitment, waste management can be productive while also addressing multiple urban challenges.

3. Treatment-as-a-service?

Ultimately, the goal is to ensure as little organic waste as possible goes into dumpsites. Even more importantly, profiting from sales of products from organic waste treatment (e.g., compost and BSF larvae) should not be endorsed as the main revenue source for a sustainable waste management practice. This framing matters because waste management is a cost-heavy sector that often requires subsidies and, therefore, government commitment to allocate budget to sustain operations.

It is telling that even with a basic collect-transport-and-dump method, the system often collapses due to a lack of available government funds. Let alone introducing a treatment solution with more associated costs.

The key to this reform’s success lies primarily with the government. To drive this systemic change, the provision of essential waste management services for collection and separation, especially in the form of fixed capital assets as the highest cost component, will be crucial (see pages 28-29 of the linked report).

Political will to resolve the challenge will show in the budget it commits to support setup and operations.

A race against time

Those three reform principles are set with an overarching output in mind. By shifting the mindset on where and how to treat organic waste, and how the financial model should run, we enable a solution that is rapid, replicable, low-tech, and cost-effective. These are the characteristics we need to address the methane challenge.

This ongoing crisis demands a fast, actionable solution with a low barrier to implementation. Moreover, methane is a short-lived climate pollutant, which means we don’t have the luxury of preparing a dandy plan; we are in a race against time every day to prevent more from being generated in dumpsites.

More methane is being generated as you finish reading this article, which means more of your tax is likely to be spent on throwing water on a pile of garbage. Is that something that you consent to?

Want to share your views on public policy reforms or other political issues?

Write to us: connect@thinkpolicy.id

It’s barely been a month since the devastating earthquake tore through East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), exposing Indonesia’s vulnerable emergency architecture. Yet here we are again, watching the sky painted in choking hues of orange and grey as the country battles forest fires across Sumatra and Kalimantan, while four active volcanoes — Mount Anak Krakatau, Mount Semeru, Mount Ili Lewotolok, and Mount Ibu — erupt and spew ash across Java and Nusa Tenggara.

While volcanic eruptions are natural geological events, forest fires are human-made catastrophes. Extreme weather shifts resulting from the cyclical climate phenomenon El Niño may have catalyzed the spread of these forest fires, but calling them “natural disasters” is lazy and absolves human actors of accountability.

The reality is that people in Kalimantan and Sumatra, even those in Malaysia and Singapore, now breathe hazardous air because the government failed to curb the spread of forest fires despite the crisis being entirely foreseeable.

As early as April, the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) issued a warning that this year’s El Niño would trigger severe dry spells, turning our dense forests and fragile peatlands into tinderboxes. BMKG’s climatologists even correctly predicted that forest fires would spread in Kalimantan around July and August. Yet, despite this research, the government failed to prepare, and the people paid for it.

The contested ‘local wisdom’ provision

The root cause of these fires has remained unchanged since 1997: the persistent, illegal use of fire by plantation companies (and others) for land clearing. Although the government regulates the practice, Article 69 Section 2 of Law No. 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management allows exemptions for indigenous communities, limited to two hectares per household and only if done to grow local plant varieties.

As environmental advocates have pointed out for years, massive palm oil and timber corporate entities have allegedly been involved in land clearing by burning that caused the forest fires.

Last month, Kompas overlaid a map of Kalimantan forest fire hotspots on a Kalimantan land concession map. The result shows that over 50 percent of fires happened on concession lands, such as oil palm plantations, mining, and logging.

A provision meant to protect traditional farmers has become a legal blanket enabling widespread environmental destruction. Decades of drainage and deforestation have turned Indonesia’s peatlands (gambut) into dry, underground fuse networks. On dry peat, a controlled fire on a two-hectare plot cannot be contained to its boundary. It seeps beneath the surface, spreading invisibly across miles and igniting uncontrollable blazes.

On 7 September 2026, after the haze spread uncontrollably, the government finally announced a Presidential Instruction prohibiting all forest land burning, including practices rooted in local wisdom.

Once again, the state’s response reveals a troubling pattern: reactive, disjointed, and reliant on last-minute notifications. Those affected by the burning forests had to wait weeks before the president said anything, while fires didn’t stop destroying their lands and haze polluted their air. The multiple volcanic eruptions show a similar pattern. Communities near these volcanic zones received warnings only when ash was already settling on their roofs.

Why are predictive systems, early-warning alerts, and quick disaster response consistently treated as an afterthought?

The oil palm companies… benefit?

However, the most surreal and damning indictment of this entire tragedy lies not on the ground, but on the trading floors of the stock exchange.

When the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred in 2010, BP’s stock crashed by over 50 percent within weeks. Investors fled because they anticipated the inevitable corporate accountability: aggressive state prosecution, billions in regulatory fines, and massive operational sanctions.

In Indonesia, the market behaves in the opposite way. As fires destroy thousands of hectares and smoke darkens the skies, the stock prices of major palm oil and agribusiness firms do not crash. They surge. Crude palm oil futures near record highs, and market valuations rise as investors anticipate constrained supply and higher commodity prices.

How can a corporate sector facing widespread environmental destruction see its equity rise? Because global and local investors have already priced in government impunity. The market understands a cynical truth: there will be no massive corporate fines, no revoking of major concessions, and no structural consequences.

This moral and institutional failure cannot continue. We cannot claim to be a modern state while relying on reactionary crisis management and outdated legal frameworks.

What the government must do

We call on the government to act decisively: (1) evaluate the land-clearing exemption and its enforcement; (2) hold corporate actors — including their beneficial owners — accountable; and (3) prioritize disaster response preparedness by taking early warnings seriously.

Law enforcement must aggressively target the beneficial owners of land concessions where hotspots emerge. Fines must be set at levels that hit balance sheets hard enough to alter corporate behavior, alongside real civil liability and concession cancellations.

The smoke will eventually clear, as it always does when the monsoon rains arrive. But until the state aligns its laws with ecological reality and proves to the market that environmental destruction carries a ruinous price tag, the fires will return year after year.