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Indonesian democracy experienced a near miss in 2014, when Jakarta governor Widodo (Jokowi) defeated former general Prabowo Subianto by a margin 6. 3% in the presidential election. Both candidates were populists who rose to in the context of public disillusionment with incumbent president Yudhoyono;, however, condemned Indonesia’s democratic system and promised take Indonesia in a more authoritarian direction. We trace democracy’s close through five phases: the dying months of Yudhoyono’s presidency, the rise of alternatives, the parliamentary elections of April 2014, the July presidential, and the aftermath. We attribute the strength of Prabowo’s campaign to organisational and financial support, while Jokowi’s victory rested upon identification with him among poor and rural voters. Also determining the was the fact that public satisfaction with democracy remained strong, undermining effectiveness of Prabowo’s authoritarian-populist message. Nevertheless, ’s future remains uncertain, given that Prabowo and his supporters control a sufficiently large number of parliamentary seats to continue a rollback of democratic reforms.
Aspinall et al. (Tue,) studied this question.