When the government decided to block Israel’s gymnastics team from entering Jakarta for the upcoming World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, it did more than just reaffirm its pro-Palestinian stance. It also reopened an old wound — the same one that cost the country its hosting rights for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

So, President Prabowo Subianto has installed Dony Oskaria as head of the BP BUMN (regulatory agency for state-owned enterprises/SOEs), an agency replacing ministry of SOEs. Until now, however, it is not clear whether Donny concurrently holds position as chief operating officer (COO) of sovereign wealth fund Danantara, which controls and manages SOEs.

When United Development Party (PPP) chairman Muhamad Mardiono declared that his camp had achieved islah—reconciliation—with rival Agus Suparmanto, he wrapped it in the language of virtue: “facilitated by good people.” But the islah was neither organic nor moral. It was engineered—an administrative peace designed to neutralize dissent and restore order within a party long reduced to political ornamentation.

Indonesia’s education sector has been under close public scrutiny lately. Amid growing concerns about the free nutritious meals program that led up to mass food poisoning, an Islamic boarding school in Sidoarjo collapsed and claimed 65 innocent lives. This recent incident shows that the problem goes beyond just the poor construction; it is also a manifestation of the government’s negligence in child protection.

The recently issued SK from the Ministry of Law acknowledging Muhammad Mardiono as the legitimate chairman of PPP is being marketed as a triumph of procedural correctness — but its deeper significance is far more troubling. In Indonesia’s fragile democracy, such moves can quietly shift a party’s soul without ever needing a bullet.

Regent of Banyumas, Sadewo Lastiono, recently talked about the unclear regulations regarding the role of local government in the free nutritious meals (MBG) program. The local government, according to Sadewo, was not even included in the planning stage. If true, this is a serious systemic issue that indicates the flawed design of the program.

The revocation of a CNN Indonesia reporter’s press ID card at the State Palace is not an isolated bureaucratic misstep. It is part of a troubling continuum in Indonesia’s democratic history—where governments, regardless of era, find ways to discipline the press when it dares to question power.

The United Development Party (PPP) once stood as the political home of Indonesia’s Muslim middle ground. Today, however, it is a house divided. The party’s 10th Congress (Muktamar) in late September did not deliver the long-awaited unity after PPP’s humiliating failure to clear the parliamentary threshold in the 2024 election. Instead, it ended with two rival claims to the chairmanship: Muhammad Mardiono and Agus Suparmanto.

The sudden emergence of two different police reform teams—one appointed by the President and another formed internally by the National Police—may appear at first as bureaucratic redundancy. In reality, it reflects a deeper political compromise: a struggle over trust, legitimacy, and control in the reform of one of Indonesia’s most powerful yet most distrusted institutions.