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For decades, Indonesia’s police and intelligence agencies have faced accusations of spying on politicians, journalists, and activists. Now, a widening scandal involving senior police officers has brought those concerns directly to the heart of government.
Senior Officers Named as Suspects
Earlier this month, Indonesian police named four senior officers as suspects in an alleged illegal surveillance operation targeting President Prabowo Subianto and other prominent figures. Former national police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who is unrelated to the president, was among the arrested officers after becoming the president’s chief of staff in October, just weeks before the scandal broke. Investigators stated that officers intercepted communications without proper authorization in 2025 and 2026 and subsequently attempted to delete records of the operation.
Suyudi Ario Seto, the new police chief, informed a parliamentary panel that the surveillance targeted the president, officials within the presidential palace, ministries, state institutions, lawmakers, political party figures, governors, anti-corruption officials, activists, and students. A parliamentary commission is investigating the motive behind the wiretapping and attempting to uncover whether other senior figures were involved. Meanwhile, the police have opened an investigation into possible treason-related offenses.
Amnesty International has called for investigations to determine whether the wiretap operation was used to intimidate government critics and weaken civil liberties. In response, the government ordered an additional 20,000 troops to Jakarta as a precaution, although there has been no indication that the wiretap is part of a larger campaign intended to bring down Prabowo’s administration. The affair has intensified tensions between Prabowo and his predecessor, Joko Widodo, while exposing deeper problems with the powers and political loyalties of Indonesia’s security establishment.
Yohanes Sulaiman, an associate professor at Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani, told Deutsche Welle that the use of surveillance is quite widespread. Sulaiman explained that while laws and regulations exist, they are flouted because there are no specific regulations on eavesdropping, particularly by law enforcement agencies. Officially, Indonesia’s Electronic Information and Transactions Law prohibits unauthorized interception, while other legislation permits surveillance for specified law enforcement and intelligence purposes. Despite these safeguards, Sulaiman noted that it could be argued the police and intelligence are essentially unconstrained.
A Long History of Surveillance in Indonesia
Gatra Priyandita, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Deutsche Welle that intelligence agencies and law enforcement have long played a role in political competition. Under Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime, which collapsed in 1998, intelligence agencies were central in monitoring political opponents and suppressing dissent. Following democratization, controversies persisted, including a 1999 leaked recording of a telephone conversation involving then-President BJ Habibie that raised concerns about surveillance within the presidential palace.
In 2024, the elite counterterrorism unit Densus 88 was caught surveilling Deputy Attorney General Febrie Adriansyah while he was overseeing major corruption investigations. However, Priyandita noted that what makes the latest allegations particularly significant is their apparent scale and the suggestion that surveillance capabilities may have been deployed outside established legal procedures and against the sitting president.
Since taking office in October 2024, Prabowo has sought to consolidate his authority over the country’s political and security institutions. Critics have accused him of accelerating the militarization of civilian government, including through legislation expanding the military’s ability to occupy civilian posts. However, the president inherited a security establishment partly shaped by his predecessor. In 2024, Jokowi backed Prabowo’s presidential campaign, and his eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, became vice president. The alliance was decisive for Prabowo’s electoral victory but left him governing alongside officials and political networks cultivated during Jokowi’s decade in power.
On Thursday, Gibran resigned as vice president amid a controversy over his educational credentials. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court and Supreme Court found that Gibran’s overseas high school qualifications fell short of legal requirements for vice presidential candidates and had been wrongly accepted by election authorities. The academic credentials probe was apparently unrelated to the wiretapping investigations.
Calls for Security Reforms
A series of government reshuffles in recent months has been interpreted as Prabowo’s attempt to strengthen his control, especially against some Jokowi loyalists. Listyo, appointed police chief by Jokowi in 2021 and long regarded as close to the former president, was replaced in October. Priyandita stated that while Prabowo may have consolidated his political authority, it does not necessarily translate into complete control over institutions whose senior leadership and internal networks were shaped under the previous Jokowi government. Priyandita added that Prabowo may emerge politically stronger if the investigation weakens rival networks within the police, though replacing one set of political loyalties with another would do little to resolve underlying problems in the security apparatus.
Nicky Fahrizal, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, told Deutsche Welle that because the controversy targeted the president, political elites, and civil society actors, the surveillance goes beyond mere politics and represents a calculated and systematic abuse of power. Fahrizal argued that a fundamental problem lies in the National Police’s constitutional and institutional position answering directly to the president, which increases the risk that police respond to presidential political interests rather than solely to the law.
In November last year, Prabowo established a police reform commission to investigate longstanding concerns about professionalism, governance, and accountability. However, Fahrizal stated that former police chief Listyo failed to implement meaningful reforms, with the latest allegations showing the consequences of inadequate oversight. Fahrizal called for Indonesia to bring fragmented surveillance regulations together under a unified legal framework with tighter controls over interception powers. Without such changes, divided political loyalties risk becoming a dangerous virus spreading through the police and other security institutions, he concluded.
