Explosive protests have broken out across Indonesia. They were ignited by revelations that all 580 lawmakers pocket an obscene 50 million rupiah a month in “housing allowances” —around ten times the official minimum wage in Jakarta and up to twenty times the wages in poorer provinces— on top of their already bloated salaries. This came as millions are being crushed by drastic austerity cuts, soaring taxes, mass lay-offs in the industrial sector and a brutal cost-of-living crisis.
The protests began last Monday, with thousands of students and workers rallying in front of the House of Representatives in the capital, accusing lawmakers of being out of touch with ordinary struggling Indonesians. Fueled by the violent state repression, they then intensified and spread to other major cities, developing into something akin to a nationwide uprising.
“Murderers! Murderers!”
The anger reached boiling point after the killing of Affan Kurniawan, a poor 21 year-old motorcycle delivery rider, run over by an armoured police vehicle on Thursday night in Jakarta —a grim reminder of how cheap working-class lives are to the regime. Immediately after this incident, thousands of delivery drivers and other protesters besieged a police station demanding justice. Hundreds of fellow workers escorted Affan’s coffin the next day as chants of “Murderers! Murderers!” echoed through the streets of central Jakarta.
The days that followed saw riots and fierce street battles; police stations, local state buildings and homes of politicians, symbols of the ruling elite’s greed and corruption, were set ablaze or ransacked by angry protesters across the country—in scenes reminiscent of the 2022 Aragalaya uprising in Sri Lanka. On Friday night, at least three people were killed after a council building was set on fire in the city of Makassar. At least eight people have been killed since the protests began last week, over a thousand have been detained, and 20 are reportedly “missing”.
On Sunday, under intense heat, President Prabowo Subianto took a step back, announcing a reduction in the parliamentarians’ allowances as well as a temporary suspension of their overseas trips. At the same time, he set the tone for a major state crackdown, referring to acts of “terrorism” and “treason”, and ordering the military and police to take strong action against “looters and rioters”.
Widespread hatred at the elite
Because of the massive deployment of state forces —including police checkpoints, military patrols and snipers in key locations— a number of students, unions, and civil society groups decided to call off their protests on Monday, fearing a surge in government repression. Despite this, hundreds of protesters still gathered across various cities on Monday, defying threats of a crackdown —notably outside the Parliament in Jakarta, in Palembang, Banjarmasin, Yogyakarta and Makassar.
While the protests seem to have come to a relative lull at the time of writing, Prabowo’s last-minute concessions and his threat of further repression will not stem the tide of anger boiling underneath.
These protests have expressed not just outrage at parliamentary ‘excesses’, but deep rage at a system built on structural inequalities, elite plunder, and growing state authoritarianism– all at the expense of the millions who toil to survive. Ruling institutions are perceived as so rotten and untrustworthy that protesters have been calling for “Bubarkan DPR”—the dissolution of the Parliament itself.
The Indonesian economy is also facing a major job crisis, poised to be worsened by the effects of the Trump administration’s new tariffs on the country’s goods. According to the Indonesian Manpower Ministry itself, over 40,000 workers have been sacked in the six months between January and June —mainly in the manufacturing, retail and mining industries— a 32.1% jump compared to the same period last year. Union sources estimate that job losses could climb into the hundreds of thousands in the months ahead.
In this context, public fury has been building up for quite some time, and this uprising is only its latest and sharpest expression yet.
In August 2024, even before Prabowo took office, Indonesia was already shaken by mass protests over a plan to rewrite the country’s electoral rules. In February this year, students launched a nationwide campaign called “Indonesia Gelap” —“Dark Indonesia”— denouncing the regime’s budget cuts to health, public infrastructure and education.
In March, student-led demonstrations swept through major cities opposing new legislation that expands the military’s grip over government and civilian institutions. Hundreds of pro-democracy activists camped outside Parliament, with slogans like “Reject militarism” and “Back to the barracks”. This law marked the return of dwifungsi – the “dual-function doctrine” of General Suharto’s dictatorship (1967–1998), during which military officers held key government positions. That system was dismantled after Suharto’s fall, but Prabowo —Suharto’s own son-in-law and a former top general notorious for countless atrocities during the dictatorship, from colonial-style repression in East Timor and West Papua to the abduction of pro-democracy activists in Jakarta— is attempting to drag Indonesia back to its darkest past.
Organising to win
It is not even one year into Prabowo’s tenure —won in a landslide— and Indonesia has already been rocked by several waves of protests, the latest being the most significant since the 1998 Reformasi movement that ended Suharto’s 32-year dictatorial rule. Today, the ‘democratic order’ that has replaced the dictatorship has decades of betrayals to answer for—failing to deliver genuine democracy, social justice, or freedom from the shackles of militarism. This is a capitalist order that has enriched parasitic oligarchs while leaving millions in poverty.
As the grassroots calls for the dissolution of the parliament correctly point out, there is nothing to expect from a self-serving and corrupt political elite bound hand and foot to those who hoard Indonesia’s wealth. Even the retreat on parliamentary perks was won only through mass pressure; this is not the time to wind down that pressure, but to use the momentum built so far to go wider, and deeper.
Pushing the struggle further—towards the overthrow of Prabowo’s regime and a radical transformation of Indonesian society— will require the working class to step to the forefront. It is the only force with the numbers and leverage to paralyse the economy and challenge the capitalist elite. Strikes in key sectors—mining, manufacturing, transport, plantations, tourism, logistics—can hit the regime where it hurts most: its profits and its control of the economy.
The uprising must revive and enlarge its demands: an end to all military interference in civilian life; the release and dropping of charges against all protesters; full accountability for the police’s bloody repression; the reversal of all of Prabowo’s austerity measures and new taxes; a living minimum wage adjusted to inflation; an end to job outsourcing; the nationalisation of any industry threatening layoffs or closures under democratic workers’ control.
But to sustain a prolonged struggle, the revolutionary youth and the working class must also channel their energy, by building their own independent democratic structures and political organisations. The creation of action committees in workplaces, schools, campuses, and communities could provide the basis for a new form of people’s power, capable of coordinating actions on a large scale —as well as mechanisms of collective self-defense against the regime’s violence.
If systematised, democratically elected, and made accountable to the movement, such bodies could lay the groundwork for a future revolutionary government of workers, youth and oppressed people, capable of breaking Indonesia from the grip of the oligarchs and generals, and redirecting resources towards jobs, healthcare, housing and education for all. Only then can the unfinished tasks of Reformasi be completed —by bringing real democracy and social liberation to the majority.