Mahfud Urges Prabowo to Reveal Who Funded the Demonstrations

Former Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD has urged President Prabowo Subianto to be transparent if he indeed knows the masterminds who paid or channelled money to mobilise demonstrations. “Ideally, Mr Prabowo should just reveal who was paid and who did the paying,” Mahfud said when met at UC UGM, Sleman, Yogyakarta, on Thursday (25/6). “It should be spoken about openly. This student executive body was paid this amount, and this is who paid them,” Mahfud stated. Mahfud stressed that if there are accusations that demonstrations were driven by certain parties with financial rewards, then the accuser should also present evidence and name the parties involved openly. “Students, for example, are clear. They point out the government’s faults, they name the government, they name the policies. If you just say students were paid, then who is supposed to be corrected among us? When students criticise the government, they mention the case, the free nutritious meal programme, the amount of corruption, the perpetrators, the institutions,” he explained. The former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court also expressed regret over the admission by a student from Bung Karno University (UBK) who received Rp20 million in connection with a recent protest. According to Mahfud, such practices are not new in the dynamics of student movements. However, he believes that the involvement of students in actions driven by certain rewards remains something to be deplored. “It is very sad if students are willing to be paid for that. Although at any given time there have always been small groups of students who break away from the mainstream struggle, that has existed since long ago,” he said. Mahfud then recounted his experience as a student, when according to him there were several individuals who played dual roles as activists and informants. “Back then, there were many student intelligence operatives, doubling as intel and activists. Our relationships only thawed again after the New Order collapsed, and we realised, ‘Oh, you were intel back then,’ ‘Yes, I was intel, I was paid,’ and so on. Now, the people who are paid are called buzzers, right? And then there are student activists like what happened in Jakarta at UBK. But that is a small current, a small current and easily found out,” Mahfud recalled. Nevertheless, Mahfud believes such groups do not represent the mainstream of the student movement. He therefore reminded students not to be easily divided by certain interests and to remain focused on fighting for their aspirations objectively. “Students should not allow themselves to be divided, with rival student executive bodies here and there. Just fight objectively that improvements are needed now,” he said. President Prabowo Subianto claimed he knew the masterminds who paid or channelled money to mobilise demonstrations. “Be careful, I am warning them. I know who pays for the demos, I know that,” Prabowo said in his speech at the peak of the XVII 2026 National Farmers and Fishermen’s Week in Gorontalo on Wednesday (24/6). Although he did not name the parties in question, Prabowo alluded to the existence of parties paying demonstrators. “When asked, the kids demonstrating don’t understand, ‘What do you want to demonstrate about?’ ‘Hm hm hm.’ We were paid Rp200,000, but it’s true,” he said.