‘We seem to be going nowhere’: Indonesian president is losing his people

Detailed summary

Prabowo Subianto’s government is in the doldrums with political scandal, rampant inflation and wildfires shredding the former general turned leader’s approval ratings.

Jakarta, Indonesia: After more than four months of living under the shroud of wildfire haze in Indonesian Borneo and keeping his young sons indoors, Kurniawan rues voting for President Prabowo Subianto.

Far to the west, on the island of Sumatra, Rama has the same regret. He has developed chest pain and breathing difficulties due to the bad air.

Prabowo’s government has struggled to contain the wildfires – which are being fuelled by El Nino and human activity like slash-and-burn farming – and are among the worst on record in Indonesia. And his administration has refused to declare them a national disaster, a label that would ease the entry of foreign aid.

“The situation has gotten so severe – yet instead of empathy, the government is turning a blind eye to our suffering,” said Rama, who, like other voters interviewed for this article, asked to be identified only by part of his name to speak freely about the country’s leader.

The haze has spread hundreds of kilometres across national borders to Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, raising fears of a regional health crisis. And for millions of Indonesians, particularly in Borneo and Sumatra, it has compounded cost-of-living woes by making fresh air a luxury.

This is not what voters like Rama and Kurniawan had expected. They had believed that Prabowo, a feared former general with a dark past, had the discipline to secure Indonesia’s economic future and the will to deal with endemic problems like wildfires.

“We had high hopes that his government would operate efficiently under one command,” said Kurniawan, 35, who lives in Central Kalimantan province. “I am very, very disappointed.”

Disenchantment among Prabowo’s base has caused his approval rating to collapse. One survey said it dropped from 81.2 per cent in November 2025 to 44.5 per cent last month, a shockingly low level in a country where people typically do not criticise their leader in public.

Another poll found that three-fourths of Indonesians felt stressed by…

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