On August 28th, Affan Kurniawan was killed after being run over by an armoured police vehicle during mass anti-government protests that rocked Jakarta. Kurniawan was an ordinary Indonesian motorcycle taxi driver working for the ride-share company Gojek; he was not a protester. Like other Ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers, he was merely carrying out their day delivering food. He was just 21.
The President of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto, offered condolences and ordered a police-wide investigation into his death. But this was all a ploy. The link between state police and national politics is strong and well-documented. Prabowo remained elusive over whether the police should take full responsibility for his death and even promised promotions to injured police officers. This blatant denial of justice sparked even larger protests across the country, with three more protestors dying at the hands of the police in Makassar. Police impunity and power are entrenched at the highest echelons of the Indonesian state, a clear indictment of the country’s nominal democracy.
Public discontent and political tumult have not been exclusive to Indonesia this past summer. More recently, the ongoing protests in the Philippines – exemplified by the Trillion-Peso March and its crackdown – echo anger over systematic corruption and calls for greater political transparency and reform. News of the misallocation of government funds for flood management, or the so-called Ghost Projects, reveals the spectre of democracy: structures promised but never built, protections drawn on paper yet absent when the floods come, and a guilty, dynastic political class that feigns ignorance by “supporting” reform. Filipinos are aware of how easily a history of broken promises, neglect, and hypocrisy exposes the fragility of their democracy.
Initially, protests were fueled by large housing allowances given to MPs. This amount is 10 times the average wage in Jakarta and is wholly removed from the public service and welfare needs of everyday Indonesians. In another act of feigned ignorance, the government scrapped the $3,000 housing allowance and voted in a $1 billion economic stimulus package. This “billion” masks the meagre reality of what that means, since the vast sum translates to just less than $4 per person. Still, the initial prideful display of institutional corruption, as represented by the allowance, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The protests snowballed into something much more significant, representing a more widespread groundswell of anti-government sentiment. Protestors called for six major demands that reflect chronic issues deep in society, including an ailing democracy, a cost-of-living crisis, and the government’s worsening effect on these issues. A police crackdown has ensued. Officers have used tear gas and high-pressure water cannons to disperse protests that were made up mainly of students, as well as political and labour activists. Leaders of major NGO and student groups have been arrested, too.
The Unlikely Alliance: Taxi Drivers and Gen-Z
Taxi drivers are among those who fight for democracy. Pro-democracy demonstrations against South Korea’s authoritarian dictatorship during the Gwangju Uprising in 1980 were supported by local taxi drivers, who used buses, cars, and their own vehicles to protest state repression. These new ‘Taxi Drivers of Democracy’ were complemented by mass-media activism. Protestors adopted the ‘Straw Hat Pirates’ Jolly Rodger’ from the hit manga and anime One Piece. The show’s Jolly Rodger represents a declaration of freedom on the high seas and the pursuit of one’s own self-expression without regard for unjust laws. For all its flaws, mass media inspired change within the country.
Protestors adopted the ‘Straw Hat Pirates’ Jolly Rodger’ from the hit manga and anime One Piece. The show’s Jolly Rodger represents a declaration of freedom on the high seas and the pursuit of one’s own self-expression without regard for unjust laws. For all its flaws, mass media inspired change within the country.
In Nepal, Asia’s summer of discontent was manifested through the Gen Z Protests that toppled the government. By analysing the causes, we can see that the demonstrations stem from a similar story: widespread state repression. The justification for more effective enforcement of the Digital Services Tax and the state shutdown of 26 social media platforms was merely a pretext for censoring netizens who highlighted government nepotism. This civil disobedience escalated into the overthrow of the current ruling government, as advocated by youth participatory groups who utilised Discord and Instagram as central organising channels for mass protests. The militaristic police crackdowns in Nepal eerily mirror the predicament in Indonesia. Yet, unlike Indonesia, many more people were killed, the parliament and presidential palace were set on fire by protestors, and a transitional government was declared by activists on Discord.
A Confederacy of Dunces: Indonesian Democracy, Police and the Judiciary
When autocracies transition to democracies, it is not a straightforward process. It does not just involve a constitution and elections every 4 years or so. A democratic society is characterised by an inclusive institutional culture that values truth-seeking, justice, and liberty at every level of power. Indonesia was only recently a right-wing military dictatorship during the New Order, led by General Suharto from 1966 to 1998. Despite the success of the pro-democracy Reformasi movement in the late 90s, which toppled Suharto, many of the defining features of the period remain, either in a dormant state or very much alive.
A notable draconian relic from the high point of the New Order era is the ‘Indonesian Code of Criminal Procedure’, also known as KUHAP. In a genuine democracy, an independent judiciary protects citizens’ fundamental rights. Interference by anyone, including the police, on a citizen’s free actions cannot be taken without judicial oversight. In other words, the police must have proper cause to restrict one’s freedom. Yet Indonesia’s internal security and the judiciary follow a model of functional differentiation which places the police on equal footing with judges and prosecutors. Given the unequal access to violent resources offered to the police, they ultimately have the final say in who is arrested, how they are questioned and—crucially—how they are punished. State security forces can act with near impunity, effectively serving as judge, jury, and executioner. In practice, the police can sidestep due process, detaining individuals without a lawyer or judicial approval. This effectively turns the country into a police state, where law enforcement wields unchecked power. A draft revision of the KUHAP in the House of Representatives would expand these powers further, potentially increasing the grounds for extrajudicial detention from three to nine. Little has been made transparent about the law, and it appears designed to entrench a self-reinforcing apparatus that authoritarian rule demands.
Still, this barely scratches the surface of Indonesia’s fragile democracy. State repression is routine, targeting activists from leftist to Islamist movements, all united in opposing government overreach. This is closely linked to the country’s ongoing struggle with its military. None other than President Prabowo proves this. A former general who received education and training in the West, he was accused of war crimes during Indonesia’s brutal occupation of East Timor (1975–1999). He was later dismissed from combat duties in the reserve army, involved in a suspected coup plot against the transitional government after the fall of Suharto in 1998, along with the kidnapping of anti-Suharto activists. Despite this, nothing barred him from pursuing a future in politics.
Prabowo ran for the presidency three times, including two unsuccessful attempts in 2014 and 2019, during which he made false claims of widespread electoral fraud. These claims instigated a wave of violent unrest among his supporters in 2019. All legal attempts to prevent his candidacy were unsuccessful. This is a crisis caused by the paradox of democracy: autocrats who are elected democratically.
State security forces can act with near impunity, effectively serving as judge, jury, and executioner. In practice, the police can sidestep due process, detaining individuals without a lawyer or judicial approval.
Since he took office in 2024, his administration, like the KUHAP, rushed a revised Indonesian National Armed Forces Law (TNI) through behind-closed-doors deliberations, essentially bringing the military back into civilian life once again. Here, active military personnel were now allowed to fill civilian positions, with some already being appointed as board directors and commissioners of state-owned enterprises.
Government by Pedants: The Anti-Democratic Political Economy
Democracy not only curbs tyranny but also establishes institutions that protect fundamental human interests, promote inclusive growth, and enable deliberative, peaceful decision-making. In successful democracies, this responsiveness to citizens’ preferences becomes normalised, de-ideologising norms and procedures while making them effective. By accommodating the abundant and diverse interests present in any society, democracy contrasts sharply with authoritarian regimes, which are often beholden to a few vested interests pursuing their own agendas. Any statement made by non-establishment voices contrary to the dogma of these elites is branded as treason, even when those statements are true.
This is the case for New Order-era Indonesia and Nepal’s ousted regime and its former monarchy. All could be characterised by the centralisation of power by influential clients across the military, economic elites, religious institutions, academia, political parties or civil authorities. They come in different shapes or sizes, of course, but this de jure “democratic” foundation belies a de facto oligarchic despotism.
It was only the promise of economic development that justified the long-term existence of these regimes. These were often pushed by technocratic elites who quietly instituted top-down reforms that buffed state capacity. Indonesia’s so-called Berkeley Mafia were an elite class of US-trained economists who pushed for free-market capitalism alongside state-led development. Nepal maintained a centralised caste-and-ethnic-based civil service, which was given outsized control over policy-making and access to international donors.
Now, growth has stagnated, as has the political class’ supposed goodwill. Economies are ticking along at 2-5% – well below policy targets and insufficient for sustainable development. The effects of pandemic-era cash injections have waned. Subdued domestic demand and turbulent external headwinds have forced central banks onto a tightrope: carefully reducing liquidity to rein in inflation while adjusting interest rates to stave off bankruptcies without choking growth. Yet the region’s thirst for liquidity rests on a fragile foundation. Cost-of-living pressures have not only persisted but now rival those of developed economies. The post-COVID reality has subverted expectations and exposed a “soft underbelly” full of structural challenges. Low-cost economies are now expensive. Wages are more stagnant. This trend extends from Indonesia and the Philippines to Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. Here, the price of frozen liquidity is resentment. And open corruption is catalysed into the impetus for discontent.
The stifled middle classes are now more restless against the corruption, collusion, and nepotism – called Korupsi, Kolusi, dan Nepotisme (KKN) in Indonesia – that crony authoritarian regimes appear to be dependent on. A changing international climate — from the end of the Cold War and global waves of pro-democracy activism in the 1980s and 1990s, to the Colour Revolutions of the 2000s and 2010s, and the decline of Western unipolarity in the present day — can also fuel further discontent. Leaders have been laid bare, both literally and metaphorically. No takedown was more poetic than the sight of the Nepalese Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paude being stripped to his underwear and thrown into a river.
The decentralisation of media access through social and visual media has created an environment where bubbling sentiments cannot be ignored. Nepal’s unprecedented E-Democracy is a prime example of this. Only a well-oiled digital surveillance state can produce a populace either made too complacent, too ideological or too tight-lipped to speak out against state repression.
Concluding Thoughts
Authoritarian regimes devolve into shells lacking any substance. They justify themselves by maintaining economic quotas, targets and statistics that are not grounded in lived-in reality. Positive political deliberation is often shunned in favour of preserving the status quo, a trend observed in ailing Western liberal democracies as well. Here we see the former political dreamers and revolutionaries become rugged realists or even cynical conservatives.
The encroachment of state violence in daily life and the social fractures from excessive digital commodification highlight how taxi drivers feel much of the brunt of modern social injustice. A truly pluralistic democracy, whatever else that may be defined as, recognises these conditions and should help improve the livelihood of the people. These everyday drivers of democracy may reveal one key point: the sleep of political will corrupts dreams into nightmares. It is only a matter of time until you wake up.
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