MINISTER ACCUSED OF ABUSES ENTERS INDONESIA PRESIDENTIAL RACE

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto has declared his entry into the Southeast Asian archipelago’s race for president in 2024, his third bid for the top job in one of the world’s largest democracies.

The powerful minister is a controversial figure at home and overseas, having been accused of human rights abuses, including involvement in the kidnapping and disappearance of prodemocracy activists in 1998.

Speaking in front of thousands of members of the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra, on Friday night, the former special forces commander accepted its nomination and said he was ready to run again.

“I am ready to keep fighting for the nation and the people, all my life and soul will be dedicated to our motherland,” Prabowo told the party meeting on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta.

Subianto has lost two previous bids for the presidency, having been defeated by the incumbent president and his former bitter election rival Joko Widodo in 2014 and 2019.

After his second defeat, Subianto and his team claimed that the poll results were fraudulent, triggering protests in the capital that turned violent, with multiple deaths.

Widodo, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, approved Prabowo’s candidacy.

“That’s how democracy works. If a minister comes to me and tells me (he is running), there’s no way I’d say no, I can’t do that,” Widodo told journalists on Friday night. “If that’s translated as me giving a blessing, be my guest.”

Subianto, a former son-in-law of Indonesia’s late dictator Suharto, has denied all allegations of his role in human rights abuses in Jakarta, restive province Papua and breakaway nation Timor Leste, and he has never been charged.

Amnesty International Indonesia called the 70-year-old’s appointment as defense minister in 2019 “a dark day for human rights.”

It also condemned the administration of then-US president Donald Trump for granting Subianto a visa for a 2020 visit after Washington had previously blocked his entry over the allegations.