Prabowo cites Tharman’s Indonesia honeymoon experience to call for national unity and service

SINGAPORE – Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on Feb 2 cited President Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s experience travelling through Indonesia more than 30 years ago as he urged his countrymen to stay united and take care of each other amid an increasingly volatile world.

Speaking at a national coordination meeting of central and regional governments in Sentul, West Java, Mr Prabowo recounted how Mr Tharman, then a young traveller on his honeymoon, had journeyed across parts of Sulawesi.

During one trip, he said, the future Singapore president and his bride were given shelter by a poor family, who shared their simple meal of rice and papaya with the two guests.

“That is the nature of our people,” Mr Prabowo said, describing Indonesians as instinctively hospitable even when they had little to spare. The anecdote, he added, reflected the generosity of ordinary Indonesians in the face of hardship, and underscored why leaders had a duty to serve fairly and honestly.

Mr Tharman had on Aug 30, 2023 revealed on Instagram that he and his wife, Ms Jane Ittogi, had travelled to Indonesia for their honeymoon, which included a stop in the town of Batutumonga in South Sulawesi.

During their travels, the pair became lost amid bad weather. They were eventually found by two Indonesian women, who welcomed them into their kampung home and gave them a simple meal of green papaya boiled in water with salt and some rice.

“It was so touching. They had so little and they were so warm in wanting to make us feel at home,” said Mr Tharman in a longer version of the video.

Mr Prabowo made a similar point in his speech on Feb 2, saying the episode captured the generosity and spirit of the Indonesian people.

He added that he had witnessed similar acts during his own early years as an army officer, recalling how Indonesians would give visitors “something that was very difficult for them” to give.

He said the persistence of poverty was a reminder that the benefits of development had not been shared evenly in Indonesia, and called on elites across politics, the bureaucracy and business to do more for the wider population.

In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan 22, Mr Prabowo had said extreme poverty in Indonesia has fallen to its lowest level on record, and that his aim was to eradicate it entirely within four years.

Indonesians must put aside political differences and past rivalries in order to tackle poverty together, regardless of party affiliation, said Mr Prabowo on Feb 2.

“Win or lose… we serve the people,” Mr Prabowo said, adding that his government would support regional leaders even if they came from rival parties.

He also defended his administration’s flagship free meals programme, known as Makan Bergizi Gratis (MBG), which he said had reached about 60 million beneficiaries within a year. The programme, he said, was improving nutrition for children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, while also creating jobs through thousands of community kitchens across the country.

Mr Prabowo dismissed criticism of the scheme as politically motivated, citing what he said were international studies showing that free meal programmes delivered strong economic returns.

He said the programme was on track to cover 82 million people by December 2026, supported by more than 22,000 operational community kitchens nationwide.

If fully implemented, the scheme could create between three million and five million jobs, Mr Prabowo said. “Our people need jobs, but if we just shout and criticise, jobs will not be created,” he added. “I’ve proven it to you. I’ve created one million jobs just from MBG.”

Looking ahead, Mr Prabowo said Indonesia’s goal was not to become one of the world’s richest countries, but to ensure a decent quality of life for all its people. This meant guaranteeing food security, access to education and healthcare, and sufficient income to live with dignity.

Indonesia’s leaders have a responsibility to prove their commitment to the people through concrete action, not rhetoric, added Mr Prabowo.

“We must not forget that our existence to serve is something that is easy to say, but we must prove it,” he said.