Indonesia, explained.
Indonesian Police Officers stand guard during a protest in the wake of the wiretapping scandal on 10 November 2026 in Surabaya, Indonesia (Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images)
A surveillance case engulfing a former police chief revives the rivalry threatening Prabowo’s pact with the Widodo family.
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Eleven phones and the spectre of treason: Jakarta’s wiretap scandalEleven phones and the spectre of treason: Jakarta’s wiretap scandal
Indonesia was jolted last week by accusations that the phones of President Prabowo Subianto and a string of other high-profile figures were illegally wiretapped by a conspiracy within the National Police.
The allegations have dredged up a longstanding political rivalry at the heart of recent Indonesian politics between Prabowo and former President Joko Widodo.
For the people of Indonesia, reckoning with a cost-of-living crisis brought on by global factors and exacerbated by Prabowo’s economic agenda, a fresh scandal is an unwelcome distraction. But for Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the pain is probably more immediate. The erstwhile eldest son of Widodo was controversially put on the ticket with Prabowo to exploit his father’s enduring popularity and formalise the partnership between the clans akin to a 19th-century European noble marriage.
Now that arrangement threatens to unravel.
The head of the wiretapping conspiracy, the government alleged Tuesday, was Listyo Sigit Prabowo. Listyo, no relation to the president, served as chief of the police from 2021, beginning under Widodo, before being named Presidential Chief of Staff in a mini reshuffle of the cabinet last month. Listyo is well-known to be a close associate of Widodo and was one of few remaining allies to survive two years of upheaval in the Prabowo cabinet.
Three other high-ranking police officers (Opens in new window) have also been named suspects: Legal Division chief Ahrie Sonta Nasution and Inspectors General Slamet Uliandi and Eko Hadi Santoso.
“[They] are suspected of illegally tapping the telephone numbers of the president of the Republic of Indonesia, state officials, political figures, media, mass organisation figures, NGOs and businessmen,” Asep Safrudin, head of the police’s Criminal Investigation Agency,told media Tuesday evening (Opens in new window).
By Wednesday, the spectre of “treason” had been raised. State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi suggested (Opens in new window) wiretapping could end up jeopardising the security of state interests, including endangering the safety of the head of state, raising the stakes from scandal to possible flashpoint.
The presence of security personnel on the streets of Jakarta is as common as satay chicken vendors.
The finger-pointing came from the president himself, according to reporting by the country’s premier investigative news magazine Tempo. Prabowo has reportedly worried in the past that his phone had been compromised and that Listyo was behind it, so much so that he’d enlisted aides to warn off the then-police chief. Which raises a blunt question: how accurate are the allegations? Is the president, a man who spent a lifetime in the military fending off threats real and perceived, jumping at shadows as his popularity plummets and the hard reality of governance knocks the palace?
Police said 11 phones, four USB drives and an iPad had been confiscated from two properties in South Jakarta, allegedly the sites of operations. At this stage, no further evidence has been made public.
Evidence may be scant, but the security response has been swift. While the presence of security personnel on the streets of Jakarta is as common as satay chicken vendors, the scale and speed with which a reported 21,000 marines arrived in the capital within days stunned. The roll-out prompted whispers of a potential coup from within the military against the president, or worse.
Nothing quite so dire eventuated. The show of force is being read as a presidential flex against any emerging political opposition, and if it scares off the simmering student-led protests as well, consider that a bonus.
But it marks an explosive end to the truce of sorts between Prabowo and Widodo – one that has held, uneasily, since Prabowo’s second election defeat to Widodo in 2019, when Widodo brought him into government as defence minister to help quell violent post-election unrest. The appointment worked, but, paired with Widodo’s own undermining of democratic institutions (Opens in new window) in the country, has led to a period of sustained hyper-securitisation and a legislative agenda heavy on consolidating power for elites and rolling back democratic gains.
As Listyo and his alleged co-conspirators languish in detention, Gibran is looking at impeachment over a convoluted case in which it is alleged he misled, either deliberately or accidentally, election officials over his high school certificate. Gibran attended secondary school in Singapore and a bridging course at the University of Technology Sydney. Calls from across the House and supporters of Prabowo to launch impeachment proceedings suddenly went cold (Opens in new window) as the police scandal unfolded. Gibran on Tuesday told Probowo he intended to resign (Opens in new window), but this could be a ploy for time, a short-lived respite for the embattled Widodo clan.
About the author
Erin Cook
Erin Cook is a journalist covering Southeast Asia politics.
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