November 4, 2025
JAKARTA – There are a lot of things that can disqualify former New Order strongman Soeharto from being eligible to receive the status of a national hero.
For one thing, he was a ruthless military general who had no qualms about resorting to violence to maintain order and stability throughout his 32-year rule in this country.
Many can certainly debate whether Soeharto had a hand in the massacre and mass incarceration of thousands of communists in the months and years after the 1965 coup, but the fact that the pogroms continued under his watch should be enough to bring him to a human rights tribunal.
The anti-communist witch-hunt was in fact a foundational myth for the New Order regime and it was from this “original sin” that Soeharto formed the blueprint of his authoritarian tactics used throughout his regime.
From the occupation of then-East Timor in the mid-1970s, mysterious killings of thugs and criminals in the early 1980s to military operations in Aceh throughout the 1990s, Soeharto came down hard on any potential threats toward his development agenda, resulting in the deaths and disappearances of so many civilians.
Also in the name of stability, Soeharto cracked down on any signs of dissent by banning political debates in college campuses, imposing strict censorship on the media and simplifying the country’s political system by allowing only three political parties: the United Development Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party and the Golkar Party to contest the tightly-monitored general elections.
But if there is one type of dark art that Soeharto perfected in the three decades that he was in power, one with the most deleterious impact, it is the deep-rooted culture of corruption.
In the years after the Reformasi movement ousted him from power, Indonesia has been more or less free from Soeharto’s political legacy, with the military being sent back to the barrack, political parties freely contesting elections and the media freedom and free speech being restored in the country’s legal framework.
Yet, corruption remains Indonesia’s intractable problem despite multi-year anti-graft campaigns from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
And despite frequent pledges from successive presidents in the past five administrations to crack down on corruption and uphold transparency, there is no sign that the problem of corruption is resolved.
Data from the global graft watchdog Transparency International shows that in 1995, when the global corruption index was first launched Indonesia scored 19 on the corruption perception index, ranking 41st out of 41 countries surveyed.
Two decades later, in 2024, Indonesia scored 34 in the perception index, ranking 115th out of 180 countries surveyed. (In comparison, the index for Singapore is 84 in the same year).
And for every government project being awarded without tender, for all kickbacks and cuts being diverted into the pockets of government officials and for every decision to appoint family members for government positions, we can blame Soeharto for pioneering the art of political corruption.
Many have argued that Soeharto began to practice corruption only in the latter years of his administration, when his children reached adulthood and already started their business enterprises.
But even a cursory look at his early years as president can show us that early on he afforded special privileges to some of his friends and cronies, local businessmen like Sudono Salim and Bob Hasan, whose enterprises would soon control a vast swathe of Indonesia’s economy.
So massive was the network of corruption that Soeharto built and expanded in the three decades that he ruled Indonesia that when he left office he amassed, according to some estimate, between US$15 billion and $35 billion, making him one of giants in the pantheon of the world’s most corrupt political leaders, figures like Ferdinand Marcos Sr. of the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.
With a reputation like this, Soeharto should certainly be the last person to be bestowed the title of national hero.
And if the administration of President Prabowo Subianto does have a plan to make him one, it still has one week to reconsider.