Shooting from the hip: Prabowo's unscripted presidency

President Prabowo Subianto 's tenure has been marked by a recurring pattern of rhetorical detours. His supporters see his direct, unscripted style as refreshingly authentic; critics see a habit that regularly produces high-profile verbal slips with real domestic and international consequences.

He claimed at a business summit that Iran already possesses nuclear weapons, and has publicly branded critical journalists, researchers and civil society groups as modern-day "londo ireng" ("black Dutchmen," or foreign servants). The Iran remark forced Jakarta into diplomatic clarifications to reassure partners of Indonesia's nonaligned stance; the "londo ireng" comment drew sharp condemnation from press groups like the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and from governance watchdogs, who saw it as an attempt to delegitimize public oversight.

Both episodes point to the same underlying problem: an instinct for impulsive rhetoric that undercuts statecraft and keeps his communications team in permanent damage-control mode.

Prabowo's communication style follows directly from his background. As a former army general and longtime political figure, his default register is martial, populist and commanding. He is comfortable in front of cameras, speaks often - nearly daily - and clearly enjoys holding the floor. But his habit of setting aside prepared remarks in favor of spontaneous, freewheeling delivery carries real structural risk. Improvisation can project warmth or strength at a campaign rally; from a head of state, the same words carry legal, economic and diplomatic weight.

When Prabowo departs from his brief, he tends to replace precise policy argument with dark humor, inflated figures or combative asides. Spontaneity is not, by itself, a communication asset - not when it produces confusion, public backlash and erosion of institutional trust.

Prabowo often models his posture, volume and nationalist cadence on founding president Sukarno. The comparison does not hold up well.

Philosophical depth: Sukarno wove complex political ideas - Pancasila, Marhaenism, his broader anti-colonial framework - into poetic, multilingual addresses. Prabowo's rhetoric is more transactional: realpolitik, security threats and warnings about the leakage of national resources.

Preparation and discipline: Sukarno meticulously drafted, structured and rehearsed his major addresses. Even his apparent improvisations sat within a tightly controlled outline. Prabowo, by contrast, often shows little visible preparation and frequently abandons his notes once he reaches the microphone.

Language and delivery: Sukarno used rhythmic, literary Indonesian to unify a diverse nation. Prabowo defaults to blunt, colloquial, martial language that can slide into aggressive tangents under pressure.

Where Sukarno treated rhetoric as a finely tuned instrument of state philosophy, Prabowo tends to wield it as a blunt instrument - turning unscripted digressions into political liabilities. Each slip sends the administration's communications operation into cleanup mode, ranging from technical fixes - cutting live feeds, deleting official clips - to elaborate public justifications. In defending the "londo ireng" remark, palace strategists leaned on a strained "two-way freedom of speech" argument and urged the public to look past the phrasing to the "substance" underneath.

The team behind this apparatus is politically seasoned but built more for campaigning and soft-power outreach than for presidential discipline:

Government Communication Agency (Bakom) Head Muhammad Qodari, who is also a political analyst, pollster and former head of Indo Barometer and is a former chief of Presidential Staff (KSP), brings deep media experience and works aggressively to redirect attention from podium controversies to the president's broader "substance."

Angga Raka Prabowo - longtime Gerindra insider and former media director, provides operational control and personal loyalty within the communications apparatus. Special Advisor to the President for Communication Affairs Hasan Nasbi is a political consultant and founder of Cyrus Network and specializes in narrative positioning and spin. Communications and Digital Minister Meutya Hafid brings legislative experience and a broadcast journalism background to coordinating state digital infrastructure.

Special Envoy of the President for the Development of Youth and Arts Workers Raffi Ahmad serves as the administration's bridge to pop culture, youth and the creative economy. Central to the 2024 "Gemoy" rebrand, he uses his enormous social media following (tens of millions across Instagram and YouTube) to soften government messaging and pull youth attention away during political crises.

Digital networks and "buzzers" - a coordinated online apparatus, honed in during the 2024 campaign, deploying influencers and networked accounts to flood comment sections and push counternarratives whenever a slip occurred.

A durable presidential communications strategy cannot rest on after-the-fact spin, celebrity softening, buzzer campaigns and rhetorical gymnastics from palace spokespeople. Prabowo's team is skilled at building campaign narratives, deploying figures like Raffi Ahmad and extinguishing fires quickly - but its core challenge remains unresolved: managing the president himself.

Until the team can establish real podium discipline, and until Prabowo comes to see restraint as a tool of statecraft rather than a constraint on it, his unscripted outbursts will keep generating avoidable domestic conflict and diplomatic friction.