Civic demonstrations in Jakarta that started as a movement to agitate for better worker welfare and an increased minimum wage quickly escalated after security forces responded with extreme force, and a delivery rider was killed by a security forces vehicle.
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Twenty-one year old Affan Kurniawan, a Gojek rider, was killed on Thursday, when an armoured police vehicle ran over him outside demonstrations by Indonesia’s House of Representatives.
The unrest was also triggered by news of an increase to the salaries and allowances of parliamentarians. Demonstrators were objecting to government officials now being paid 10 times the minimum wage and recent tax increases that have disproportionately affected the country’s middle and lower-middle classes.
At the time of reporting, the protests were spreading beyond Jakarta to Bandung, Surabaya, Solo and Yogyakarta. On Saturday, three people were reportedly killed in protests in Makassar, Sulawesi, in a council building fire.
Marlistya Citraningrum, programme manager for sustainable energy access at Jakarta-based think tank Institute for Essential Services Reform, said that beyond objections to parliamentary privilege, rising living costs and climate-induced resource scarcity underpin the protests.
“Inequality is rising in Indonesia and people are disappointed with the government’s failure to provide basic necessities,” she told Eco-Business.
Economic inequality was a key concern during the country’s presidential election campaign last year, as spotlighted by an editorial in The Jakarta Post, but no candidates put forward a comprehensive strategy to address the problem, wrote the publication. In 2022, Paris-based Global Inequality Report said that Indonesia ranked sixth in wealth inequality worldwide. Income disparity has also worsened.
Poor budget allocation for projects such as the controversial free school meals programme and a plan to raise the national health insurance fee have compounded a sense of injustice among ordinary Indonesians, Marlistya said.
The free school meals programme is President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship policy to improve nutrition among Indonesian children, although questions have been raised over the programme’s fiscal sustainability and its environmental impact, since it involves importing millions of cattle to boost meat and dairy production.
“Living costs have also increased, including for food, and we import rice and other staples as well since land productivity is low,” said Citraningrum.
“Jakartans are also angry about government incompetency since the dry season has been wet,” she said. The climate-vulnerable country has experienced heavy flooding in recent months and discontent with the authorities’ response to worsening extreme weather is rising, she added.
Jeanny Sirait, climate justice campaigner for Greenpeace Indonesia, said there is a growing sense of unease with extraction industries profiting from environmental degradation while people affected by declining soil, water and air quality are struggling to meet their daily needs.
She noted that Indonesia has the highest rate of unemployment in Southeast Asia. More than 7 million Indonesians are jobless with the youth unemployment rate at 16 per cent – more than double the rate of Thailand and Vietnam.
This is “proof enough that the government’s dependence on a degraded economic system makes life even more difficult for citizens,” Sirait told Eco-Business.
A sustainability consultant, who did not want to named, said there was a danger that the protests could escalate to the level of the 1998 Reformasi riots, when 1,000 people died in demonstrations against corruption, mass unemployment and the economic collapse that followed the Asian financial crisis.
“A more diverse section of society are protesting compared to previous demonstrations – and this is not just a single-issue protest anymore,” he told Eco-Business.
Compounding the sense of anger among Indonesians is the narrative propagated by officials that uneven wealth distribution is at the heart of the country’s problems – a sentiment seen as hypocritical at a time when public servants have been flaunting their wealth in social media, he said.
If the government keeps up its poor track record of economic mismanagement and questionable policymaking, “we will be headed for a third people revolution”, he said.
In a statement delivered via a televised address on Friday, President Prabowo called for calm and ordered a probe into the death of the delivery driver.
