AMJ Gives Government One Week to Continue Free Nutritious Meals Programme

A crowd from the Jakarta Community Alliance (Aliansi Masyarakat Jakarta) held a demonstration supporting President Prabowo Subianto and his flagship free nutritious meals (MBG) programme at the Monas Silang Monas area on Monday, 22 June 2026. An alliance representative said they were received by Deputy Minister of State Secretary Juri Ardiantoro for an audience. Alliance Coordinator Edy Marzuki said the meeting with Juri lasted 30 minutes at the Ministry of State Secretariat office. ‘We conveyed our demands, so they can be passed on to the President,’ Edy said at the protest site afterwards. Edy stated the crowd had two demands. The first is that the MBG programme continues. The second, he said, is that Prabowo imprisons corruptors and oligarchs who profited from MBG corruption. According to Edy, his alliance is giving the government one week to respond to these demands. If there is no follow-up, he said, the Alliance is ready to stage another demonstration with a larger crowd. ‘If the MBG programme is not continued within a week, we may open the floodgates for the whole of Indonesia to come to Jakarta,’ he said. During the meeting with Juri, Edy said the Deputy Minister promised to convey the MBG issue to Prabowo. ‘The Deputy Minister is very supportive,’ he said. Tempo contacted Juri via messaging application to inquire about his meeting with the pro-MBG protesters. Juri had not responded to the message by the time this report was written. The pro-MBG demonstration in the southern area of Monas took place from Monday afternoon. The demonstrators appeared to be wearing all-white clothing for the protest. They dispersed in the evening. This rally occurred following a wave of demonstrations criticising the MBG programme. On Thursday, 18 June, for instance, the Indonesian Women’s Alliance (API) staged a protest at the Hotel Indonesia Roundabout area in Jakarta, carrying three demands: lowering staple food prices, creating jobs, and halting the MBG project. Demonstrators at that time highlighted the implementation of the MBG. Protest representative Afifah assessed that the programme does not address the fundamental problems faced by the public. ‘MBG is a political project, not a project to provide nutritious food,’ she said. Previously, a mass action titled ‘Towards a Bankrupt Indonesia’ initiated by a student alliance also took place on Friday, 12 June 2026. One of their demands included that the government stop the free nutritious meals programme and the construction of the Merah Putih Village Cooperatives.