Photo from instagram.com/prabowo
There is something profoundly unsettling about the suggestion that Indonesia’s president might personally pay for his official overseas travel. Not because it reflects generosity but because it reflects institutional failure.
According to Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya, if President Prabowo Subianto’s official foreign trips exceed the allocated state budget, he personally covers the difference.
This statement was intended to silence criticism over his unusually intensive overseas diplomacy. Instead, it has exposed a far more troubling question: when did Indonesia begin treating diplomacy as something that could be subsidised by its president’s personal wealth?
This should never happen. Not in Indonesia or any country serious about being a democracy.
Foreign policy is not a private hobby. It is not philanthropy. It is not an extension of a president’s personal lifestyle. It is one of the state’s most fundamental sovereign responsibilities. Every handshake, summit, negotiation and state visit is conducted on behalf of 280 million Indonesians—not on behalf of one wealthy individual. That distinction matters.
Personalising the state
Modern democracies spend decades building institutions precisely so that governments do not depend on the generosity of individual leaders. States finance diplomacy because diplomacy belongs to the state. Budgets are debated by legislatures, audited by public institutions and scrutinised by taxpayers because foreign policy is a public responsibility.
Once a president starts paying for official diplomacy from his own pocket—even if entirely voluntary—the institutional line between public office and private wealth begins to disappear. That is not leadership but personalisation of the state.
Supporters argue that Prabowo is simply trying to save taxpayers’ money. They are missing the point. If these overseas trips are indispensable for Indonesia’s national interest, then they deserve transparent public funding approved through constitutional processes.
If they are not important enough to justify public funding, then perhaps they should not occur. There is no democratic principle that says the president should simply make up the difference himself.
Indeed, such an arrangement creates perverse incentives. It transforms budgetary discipline into an exercise in personal generosity rather than institutional accountability. Future presidents may feel pressured to demonstrate similar ‘sacrifice,’ even if they lack comparable personal wealth. Public office should never depend on private fortune.
The presidency is not a luxury brand that its owner occasionally subsidises. It is a constitutional institution.
The President’s travels
This controversy is even more striking because it comes amid growing questions about the sheer scale of Prabowo’s overseas travel.
By most measures, Prabowo has become one of Indonesia’s most internationally active presidents, spending months abroad. He argues that his diplomacy is essential for attracting investment, strengthening defence partnerships and protecting Indonesia’s strategic interests. In fact, he has vigorously defended his travel, insisting the visits produce tangible benefits for Indonesians.
Perhaps they do. But frequency alone is not a measure of successful foreign policy. The world’s most effective diplomacy is rarely measured by passport stamps.
It is measured by negotiated agreements that are implemented, investments that actually materialise, technology transfers that genuinely occur, and strategic objectives that demonstrably advance national interests. In short, diplomacy should produce outcomes—not just air miles.
The more often a president travels, the greater the obligation to demonstrate why every journey was necessary. Every state visit carries significant costs: aircraft, security, logistics, protocol and preparation, to say nothing about time away from governing at home.
Indonesians should be asking whether each trip advances national interests, whether the delegations are appropriately sized, whether follow-up commitments are being implemented, and whether the opportunity costs are justified.
Instead, the conversation has become about whether the president is personally paying the bill.
A rules-based governance
Indonesia has spent nearly three decades strengthening democratic institutions since Reformasi began 1998. The reforms sought to replace personalised rule with rules-based governance, ensuring that institutions—not individuals—carry the weight of the state.
Foreign policy should embody those principles more than almost any other area of government. Diplomacy is how a nation presents itself to the world. It should project institutional confidence, constitutional maturity and fiscal transparency.
The solution is for Indonesia’s foreign policy to return to first principles: conduct only overseas visits that clearly serve the national interest, fund them transparently through the state budget, and subject every rupiah to public accountability.
A republic should never ask its president to bankroll its diplomacy.
And a president should never offer.
Leave a comment