During the past few weeks, thousands took the streets of Jakarta, Indonesia, to contest increases in housing allowances for government officials. Attempting to disperse the crowd, the police directed a tactical vehicle at the demonstrators, murdering 21-year-old platform driver Affan Kurniawan. Protests have since escalated nationwide, denouncing broader government corruption and police brutality.
At least 10 protesters have been killed, 20 reported missing, and 500 injured in the recent wave of protests. This is not the first time that demonstrations in Indonesia have culminated in killings by the authorities. According to YLBHI, the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, records, 55 people died in the past year (July 2024-June 2025), including 10 deaths from torture, 37 from extrajudicial killings, and eight from mistaken arrest.
A straw that broke the camel’s back
“It was really an expression of anger by the people, because since the new government under Prabowo, there have been a lot of anti-people policies in various aspects of our lives,” says Eni Lestari, spokesperson for the Network of Indonesian Migrant Workers.
“In the past few months, there have been a lot of big projects by the government, consuming most of the national budget, and they cut a lot in basic services. A lot of protests have been happening since last year, it didn’t begin just now,” she told The North Star.
Among the policies responsible for people's discontent are new taxes for the creation of a “national sovereign fund.” For this, the government is drawing from what it claims are “untapped resources,” such as ordinary people's savings and land titles that are not being used. Under this policy, the government can collect unused funds in people's bank accounts and confiscate unused lands. Those that want to retrieve their assets will have to apply through special procedures.
Moreover, the national government imposed cuts of 50% to the budgets of local governments, which led the latter to search for other avenues of funding, such as increases of land and building taxes. In one district, they were reportedly raised by a staggering 1000%.
“In one district on Java Island, the people were so angry that they protested for days for the mayor to be ousted. The protests became very big, became community protests; women, children, everyone went to the street, and they actually occupied the local government building. Somehow that protest triggered other areas to also protest. Eventually it moved from one district to another, following the same kind of protests and calling,” explains Lestari.
From the local level, protests were then triggered on the national stage after another shocking policy was announced: monthly housing allowances for all government officials would be raised by up to 50 million rupiah, or 3,000 U.S. dollars.
“Their basic income was already 15,000 U.S. dollars per month. Later on we learned the actual money is more than this, with how much they receive in the name of different programs: travel fund, food fund, communication fund, housing allowance, and so on. So that really was the reason why everyone became angry. Why are they so insensitive when the people are suffering?”
The average monthly income of a worker in Jakarta can be around 150 to 300 U.S. dollars. Many people who rely on the gig economy or informal work have to live with much less.
Protests grew from August 25 to 28, and then got even bigger after the murder of Affan Kurniawan, whose reality speaks to the condition of the Indonesian people:
“His family was too poor, so they could not bring him to school. So since he was 14 years old, he began to work as an online platform driver. He was about to deliver an item to the customer when he was killed. He got trapped in the protests when police intentionally drove into the crowd, and crushed him.”
“It is really a combination of economic disparity, and then at the same time the militarization and police brutality,” says Lestari. “A couple months ago, the national government proposed a bill to revive the role of the military as civil servants in all positions. It was really the style of the old government under Suharto. The military is being stationed in all ministries and departments.”
Longstanding Socioeconomic Issues
Many others see a worrying continuity with Suharto’s military dictatorship, which ruled the country with unfathomable repression from 1965 to 1998. “From the time of Suharto's leadership until today, Indonesia has fallen into the clutches of a global monopoly capitalist system, or imperialism. Indonesia has been treated purely as a supporting country for the success of the superpowers,” says GSBI, the Centre for Indonesian Labour Struggle.
“Not only this government, but all the governments since 1965, have been working for the interests of transnational corporations,” explains Lestari.
“If they want to invest in nickel or palm oil, they will not invest unless the infrastructure is created for them to access the resources. So the main purpose of the government is to create a public sovereign fund to invite more foreign investment,” but it is “with the purpose of exploiting our resources and exploiting the majority of the people as cheap labour. The reality on the ground is the people do not enjoy these benefits.”
World Bank data from 2024 shows that the richest 1% of Indonesians controls 50% of the nation's wealth, and nearly 195 million Indonesians, 63% of the total population, live below the poverty line. The gap between the rich and the poor in Indonesia is getting wider, with the wealth of the 50 richest people in Indonesia equivalent to the wealth of 50 million Indonesians.
“Even if we just celebrated our 80th year since independence, the truth is, we are not free at all economically, politically, socially and culturally. We don’t enjoy our resources, we have no share in the profits, and people remain poor and uneducated. That’s the consequences of decades of living under capitalism.”
Lestari draws parallel with the economic crisis unfolding elsewhere: “I think what happened in Indonesia is a reflection of what we are all living now. We are living in the era of crisis of global capitalism, which leads to fascism, and I cannot say that the case of Indonesia is an isolated case. It is also the challenge of all peoples around the world. So, I hope we can learn from each other, and support each other, to create a world where we can live in peace, justice and genuine democracy.”