Any significant change in plans for Nusantara will hurt investor confidence, he said.
“Investors will be more careful about putting money in Indonesia because backing away from a project of this magnitude sends a message that Indonesia is not a place where policies are consistent and commitments are honoured,” Djayadi said.
A positive signal, military experts recently told CNA, is Indonesia’s deployment of the recently-purchased KHAN short-range ballistic missile system in East Kalimantan, near the future capital.
Although Indonesia has not confirmed the deployment is related to the capital move, military experts said the location would make it ideal for defending one of Indonesia’s most important shipping routes and the future seat of government from a range of threat scenarios including potential long-range precision missile strikes.
NEW CAPITAL OR “GHOST TOWN”?
Delaying the relocation to Nusantara will have political implications for Prabowo in terms of his relationship with Jokowi and his proximity to Indonesia’s political elites, experts said.
Unless all of the parties in his coalition agree to move their headquarters from Jakarta to the new capital, moving to Nusantara would keep Prabowo away from the de facto political centre of Indonesia, they noted.
Prabowo cannot afford to stay too far from his circle of political elites if he wants to run for re-election in 2029, but delaying the move would mean displeasing his political patron Jokowi, who still has legions of loyal supporters, they said.
“Prabowo rose to power because of Jokowi’s support, which led many of Jokowi’s fans to vote for Prabowo. If Prabowo can show that he can be as popular as Jokowi through his populist programmes, he might go against Jokowi’s wishes and not move the capital,” Hendri Satrio, a political expert from Jakarta’s Paramadina University, told CNA.
“Prabowo has also appointed Jokowi’s loyalists to strategic positions. So I think Prabowo’s popularity in the eyes of Jokowi supporters will be maintained.”
It is too early to say how Jokowi will react if Prabowo backtracks on his promise to continue the legacy project, Hendri said.
One option is to have his son, current Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka, break away from Prabowo and contest the 2029 presidential election on his own.
“But of course (Jokowi) will make a political calculation of his own and see what the chances of Gibran defeating Prabowo in the election are – unless, of course, Prabowo decides to run with a different running mate,” Hendri said.
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