November 4, 2025
JAKARTA/DILI – Denouncements are mounting over the controversial proposal to grant national hero status to former president Soeharto, notoriously known for leading an authoritarian regime rife with corruption and human rights violations, as President Prabowo Subianto begins to review nominations for this year’s awards.
The government is considering naming Soeharto a national hero, with the Social Affairs Ministry, which drafted the list of nominees for the national hero title, putting the late president’s name in the shortlist of 40 names. The ministry claimed the move stemmed from public aspirations.
The shortlist is now under review by President Prabowo, former son-in-law of the late former president, according to State Secretary and presidential spokesperson Prasetyo Hadi.
“We have officially received the list of nominees from the Social Affairs Ministry, based on the recommendations from the board of decorations and honorary titles. The President is now studying the names,” Prasetyo told reporters on Thursday.
He added Prabowo, who holds full discretion in deciding the honorees, will carefully weigh all shortlisted nominees and announce the recipients during the commemoration of National Heroes Day on Nov. 10. Prasetyo also noted that there is “no set limit on how many people” may be awarded the national hero status.
This year’s proposal is not the first time that Soeharto’s name has been submitted in the list of potential national heroes.
The former president has been nominated for the title multiple times since 2010. But previous attempts were blocked thanks to a 1998 People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) decree, issued shortly after Soeharto’s fall from power, which called for action against corruption and explicitly named him among those to be investigated.
Read also: Rights groups decry govt proposal to name Soeharto national hero
According to the prevailing law on titles, awards and honors, recipients of the national hero title must meet specific criteria, including having made significant contributions to the nation, having no criminal convictions and exhibiting moral integrity and exemplary behavior.
Corrupt track record
The renewed push against naming Soeharto as Indonesia’s national hero came after the MPR decided in October last year to remove Soeharto’s name from its decree on the corruption investigation.
At that time, the assembly cited the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) decision to drop all corruption charges against Soeharto in 2006 after he was declared medically unfit to stand trial. He died two years after the AGO’s announcement.
Soeharto’s inclusion in the nominees list for the title has continued to draw widespread resistance from human rights and anticorruption activists, who accused political elites of trying to rehabilitate the late president’s image despite decades of human rights abuses and large-scale corruption.
“Granting Soeharto the title of hero would be like pardoning the crimes of the New Order and ignoring the systemic corruption, collusion and nepotism [KKN],” Almas Sjafrina of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said in a live streamed discussion on Friday.
“It would be a betrayal of the reformasi movement, which sought to end corruption, collusion and nepotism, as well as a distortion of history.”
She highlighted a ruling by the Supreme Court in 2005, which upheld earlier lower courts’ decisions finding the now-defunct Supersemar Foundation, set up by Soeharto to provide scholarships for underprivileged students, guilty of illegally misusing state funds. The court ordered his family to pay Rp 4.4 trillion (US$264 million) in restitution.
Soeharto’s nomination for the national hero title also drew condemnation from Timor-Leste, a country formerly known as East Timor province following a brutal occupation in 1975 under Soeharto’s orders.
Years of occupation resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people between 1975 and 1999, according to findings by the Timor-Leste Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR).
Calling the proposal an attempt to erase the history of violence against the Timorese, Ombudsman for Human Rights and Justice of Timor-Leste Virgílio da Silva Guterres said: “The struggle of the Timorese since 1975 cannot be separated from Soeharto’s role as a dictator who ruled the military regime with an iron fist.”
Read also: International outcry grows over Soeharto national hero proposal
For the Timorese, who became direct victims of human rights abuses committed in the area during his rule, recognizing Soeharto as a national hero would feel like an insult, said José Luís de Oliveira, director of Timor-Leste’s branch of Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR).
“Would Hitler deserve to be called a hero? Even if we are not direct victims of Hitler, would that be acceptable? The same question applies to Soeharto,” José said, referring to the fascist dictator who led Germany between 1933 and 1945 who is responsible for the genocide of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
Now that Indonesia and Timor-Leste, which gained its independence in 2002, are two nations that respect each other’s sovereignty, José stressed that universal human rights must remain a collective priority.