Since first contesting the presidential election in 2009, President\nPrabowo Subianto has never forgotten to mention the people in his\nspeeches. Not only when campaigning to gather votes, but now that he\ngoverns as president, the people remain a familiar part of his\nvocabulary. Prabowo positions himself as the defender and protector of\nthe people in his addresses. Most of these claims are expressed\nexplicitly. \u201cI joined the military wanting to guard this country,\nwanting to defend this country, wanting to defend my people,\u201d he said\nduring a speech to workers commemorating International Labour Day on 1\nMay 2026. \u201cI will never give up, especially if my people are\nthreatened,\u201d he stated during a speech at the Building Indonesia\u2019s\nFuture Generations Through Nutrition event in Sentul on 3 June 2026.<\/p>\n
Political communication observers view this as part of populist\nrhetoric. Most studies on Prabowo indeed classify him as a leader who\nuses populism as a strategy to gain public support. Prabowo\u2019s\ncommunication style fully meets the criteria of a populist leader.\nPresenting oneself as close to the people, and if necessary dressing and\nusing unconventional language, is a method employed by populist leaders,\nwrote Mudde & Kaltwasser, as cited by Fridolon Edwin Moke and\nSalvatore Simarmata (2024) in their study Analysis of Prabowo Subianto\u2019s\nPopulist Communication Style in the 2024 Presidential Election\nCampaign.<\/p>\n
Uttering the word \u2018people\u2019 in every speech is a habit of President\nPrabowo. A study conducted by Alwi Dahlan Ritonga & Fernanda Putra\nAdela (2019) shows that the theme of populism in Prabowo\u2019s speeches is\ngenerally conveyed from three perspectives. Firstly, Prabowo expresses\nhis sympathy for the people through verbal and non-verbal expressions,\nsuch as banging the table during a speech. Secondly, he stirs the\npeople\u2019s emotions by describing the condition of a \u2018suffering people\u2019 or\n\u2018Indonesia is a rich country but its people are poor.\u2019 Thirdly, Prabowo\nconsistently contrasts the people versus the elite, positioning the\nelite as the party that greatly harms the people.<\/p>\n
Ritonga and Adela, who presented their study in the article Examining\nPrabowo\u2019s Populism as a Form of Discursive Style During the Political\nCampaign for the 2019 Presidential Election, concluded that Prabowo uses\npopulism as rhetoric or a discursive style, not as an ideology. The\nideology filling his populism can change and is adjusted to the\ndevelopment of public opinion. Ihsan Ilmaz et al.\u00a0(2024) term this type\nof populism as \u2018fluctuating populism\u2019. In their study, they show Prabowo\nhas changed the theme of his populism from one presidential election to\nthe next. In 2024, he adopted a technocratic populism theme, appearing\nas a patriotic servant of the people, but with a technocratic and\ninstitutional approach. Whereas in previous election campaigns, Prabowo\npositioned himself as an outsider trying to save the country from\ndemocratic decline.<\/p>\n
Although the populism he carries fluctuates in theme, one constant is\nhis claim to be the defender, protector, and servant of the people.\nPrabowo consistently, articulately, and with increasing mastery plays\nthis role on stage. He often appears very emotional when speaking about\nthe people, imagining them as suffering. The people in Prabowo\u2019s\nspeeches are poor, struggling, deceived, cheated, their money stolen by\nthe elite, and neglected by those who should care for them. This\nconsistency of perspective deserves appreciation; standing on this\nfooting for nearly two decades shows his concern for the marginalised is\nauthentic.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there is a recurring issue in Prabowo\u2019s speeches that\nmay go unnoticed. A dissection of his political communication texts\nfinds a consistent sentence pattern: the people are placed as the\nobject. This linguistic positioning is certainly not born of ill intent;\nit is likely an instinctive reflex of a paternalistic leadership style,\nreflecting a sense of full responsibility as a protector and liberator.\nHowever, this linguistic phenomenon is important to recognise. Prabowo\u2019s\nspeeches need to be examined to see how the agency of citizens is framed\nin the mind of the leader. From this understanding, constructive\nfeedback can be provided for future improvement. To understand why this\npattern is continuously produced, I examined it through the concept of\nmessage features proposed by Shen and Bigsby (2013). In their study,\nthey explain that message features in a text\u2014such as sentence structure,\nvocabulary choice, and language style\u2014directly control the cognitive and\naffective processes of the audience. Knowing one\u2019s choice of vocabulary\nand language style is to know their way of thinking. I used these\nmessage features to dissect Prabowo\u2019s speech texts with a coding method\nbased on the keyword \u2018people\u2019. The result, as previously stated, is that\nthe people are dominantly placed as the object of suffering. Phrases\nlike \u2018We struggle for the people\u2019 or \u2018Everything for the people\u2019s\nprosperity\u2019 are examples. This is an active-transitive message feature\nthat places the elite as the primary driving actor (subject) and the\npeople as the recipient of action (object). I found phrases with this\ntone in five of Prabowo\u2019s speeches in the last three months, but it is\nlikely a consistent pattern throughout his political career.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/recognising-the-people-in-president-prabowos-speeches-object-of-suffering-or-subject-of-development-1784717454", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }