After the collapse of President Suharto’s autocratic New Order regime in 1998, Indonesia was widely celebrated as Southeast Asia’s most resilient constitutional democracy. The successful transition away from decades of authoritarian rule brought high hopes for institutional stability, fundamental human rights, and political representation across the archipelago. However, today Indonesian democracy faces a severe structural crisisㅡnot marked by tanks on the streets or violent military coups, but by institutional erosion from within. Political scientists observe that modern democratic breakdown rarely happens through sudden revolutionary overthrows. Instead, it occurs through a gradual, legalistic process that erodes democratic checks and balances step by step. In this post, I’d like to explore how Indonesia is experiencing stealth authoritarianism, a phenomenon where leaders use legal mechanisms and subtle military expansion to weaken democracy without directly overthrowing it.

Weaponizing Legal Harassment to silence voices

According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Report, Indonesia remains stagnated with a score of 56 out of 100, categorized firmly as Partly Free. This score reflects a broader trend across Southeast Asia, where democratic freedoms are being curtailed by state authorities using formal legislative tools. This suppression of civic space is most clearly illustrated by the controversial Electronic Information and Transactions Law, known as UU ITE. As reported by The Jakarta Post, human rights activists warned that even after recent revisions by the House of Representatives, ambiguous and harsh provisions targeting online defamation, hate speech along with expanded government authority to terminate internet access were still retained. As Saiful Mujani and R. William Liddle observe in Journal of Democracy, over 300 criminal prosecutions were initiated under the UU ITE within a four-year period alone, leading to a dramatic rise in public fear regarding political speech. Because these legal definitions are so ambiguous, law enforcement can selectively prosecute government critics, activists, and journalists. State prosecutors and police officers have wide authority to decide who gets investigated, which might silence the criticized voices. As a result, citizens now begin censoring themselves out of fear of legal prosecution. Survey data cited also reveals that the proportion of Indonesians expressing fear of speaking loudly about politics nearly tripled during former president Jokowi’s presidency, rising from 17 percent in 2009 to over 40 percent in recent years.This might lead to Varol’s Libel Lawsuits and Legal Harassment from Stealth Authortarianism, as citizens lose their ability to freely speak out and hold their government responsible. When public criticism is muted through fear of legal sanctions, the feedback line between the state and the public breaks down, allowing the regime to exercise power without meaningful public pressure. 

Expanding Overreach that looks like legal

Another major driver of democratic backsliding is the military’s growing influence over civilian governanceㅡa policy becoming faster under President Prabowo Subianto, who was a former army general. The relationship between civil and the armed forces has long been a sensitive issue in Indonesian political history. As detailed in The Jakarta Post’s The military strikes back, the government is facilitating the creeping return of Suharto’s infamous Dwifungsi (*Dual Function) doctrine. According to Military Politics, Islam, and the State in Indonesia, Author Marcus Mietzner highlights that removing Dwifungsi doctrine was the cornerstone of making Indonesia’s democracy concrete in post-1998. During the reform era, separating the military from civil administration was viewed as essential to preventing a return to dictatorship. However, the revised Indonesian Military Law expands non-combat operational orders like cyber defense while directly involving active-duty soldiers in flagship civilian programs, such as free nutritious meals and agricultural initiatives. These programs are placing military personnel in direct contact with local governance structures, slowly allowing military influence over everyday civil administration. Furthermore, by sending 200 colonels to executive management courses for future placement in state-owned enterprises, the state is putting military elites into economic management and blurring the line between civil government and national defense. Appointing military personnel to management roles in public companies can give the military significant control over state resources and economic policy. What is most important is that the revision was pushed faster without public participation or transparency, as it wasn’t even listed on Indonesia’s 2025 legislative priorities. The lack of parliamentary debate and public consultation failed to protect civil society’s opportunity to challenge these institutional changes. This can be seen as a great example of Bolstering Domestic and Global Legitimacy from stealth authoritarianism by Ozan Varol, using formal legal processes to erode civil administration silently. By presenting these changes as technical or administrative improvements, state actors can hide the military’s overreach expansion; just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Guarding Democracy from Stealth Authoritarianism

The backsliding of Indonesia’s democracy is not happening overnight through dramatic violence or loud coup. Instead, it is unfolding slowly through legal tools like the ITE Law and the expanding role of the military. As political scholars Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt explain in How Democracies Die, modern democratic decay occurs when leaders use democratic institutions to weaken democratic norms. By capturing supervisory institutions, silencing critics, and altering legal rules, elected leaders can consolidate power inside while preserving a democratic appearance outside. In Indonesia, there are possibilities that gradual erosion of free speech and civilian control over the armed forces threatens to normalize their state control. By restricting civil liberties and weakening civilian oversight, these changes threaten the foundational Indonesian democracy. The survival of democratic institutions depends on active citizen engagement and reinforce judicial independence. To keep the democracy people earned through decades of struggle, the current Indonesian regime must promise transparency of their policy direction and to ensure military power won’t be deeply involved in civil government, civil should be allowed to observe their actions.