TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Various circles, including people within the President’s inner circle, have argued that many of Prabowo Subianto’s policies adapt the ideas of his father, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo. Former Finance Minister Muhammad Chatib Basri said both men believed state intervention was necessary to maintain economic stability.
Sumitro, a social democrat who embraced Keynesianism, implemented the Benteng (fortress) Program to strengthen Indonesian pribumi (native) entrepreneurs. The difference between father and son, Chatib said, is that Sumitro understood the risks of a “high-cost economy” if the state became too dominant. Prabowo, meanwhile, with his military background, believes sovereignty could be achieved only if the state holds full control. “You could say the goal is the same, but the dosage of intervention is different,” he told Tempo on Wednesday, May 27, 2026.
Teuku Riefky, a researcher at the Institute for Economic and Social Research at the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Economics and Business, estimated that nearly 70 percent of Prabowo’s policies diverged from Sumitro’s thinking. Sumitro had envisioned a sovereign wealth fund such as the Daya Anagata Nusantara Investment Management Agency (Danantara) holding only 1 to 5 percent of state-owned enterprise assets. Danantara now controls all SOE assets worth US$1 trillion.
Sumitro—mentioned only twice in Prabowo’s book The Indonesian Paradox and Its Solution—was known as one of the architects of the New Order’s economic policies. He became the in-law of President Suharto after Prabowo married Siti Hediati Hariyadi, popularly known as Titiek Soeharto. In later years, Sumitro also criticized Suharto’s government before it fell from power.
In mid-March 1999, Tempo interviewed Sumitro twice. He explained many of his ideas on economic policy. He also recounted the 10 years he spent in exile from 1957 to 1967 because of his involvement in the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI).
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