Police Wiretapping Case Exposes Indonesia Power Rift

“When the other two suspects were about to wiretap, they got approval from SU,” cybercrime unit director Suhermanto said. He added that the officers sought SU’s approval before deleting interception records. Police have named a fourth senior officer as a suspect in the alleged wiretapping of President Prabowo Subianto, exposing a struggle inside the state’s own security apparatus as investigators pursue who authorized surveillance and why.

Who Had the Power

Police identified the suspect by the initials SU at a news conference late on Nov. 5. Local media later identified him as Slamet Uliandi. Investigators allege that he authorized the wiretapping while heading the Criminal Investigation Agency’s information and technology unit from 2021 to 2026. Police said he had served as the agency’s monitoring chief from 2010 to 2019.

The alleged chain of approval is stark: officers seeking to intercept the president’s communications reportedly asked a senior officer for permission, then sought his approval to erase records. Surveillance and control of its paper trail sit within police ranks, where those accused of exercising that power are also being investigated by police.

SU has not been detained because of a health condition, Suhermanto said. Three senior police officers were arrested on Nov. 3. They include former national police chief and Prabowo’s chief of staff, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, widely known as a loyalist of former president Joko Widodo.

A Rift Inside the Apparatus

Police are investigating the motives behind attempts to intercept Prabowo’s communications. Investigators have questioned 13 police officers and five criminal and IT experts. The national police chief formed a special investigative team, spokesman Trunoyudo Wisnu Andiko said. The investigation has put the growing rift between Prabowo and his predecessor and former ally, Widodo, in public view.

The affair is a fight among powerful figures, but its machinery reaches far beyond their private rivalry: police are investigating surveillance carried out by police officers, under authority allegedly granted within the institution. The source reports no independent or community-led investigation; the inquiry remains in the hands of the national police and its special team.

Thousands of troops were deployed after the wiretapping revelations, while Jakarta remained calm on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6. Military tents and buses, along with a small number of soldiers, were seen in the capital. The reported calm and the visible deployment are both part of the account: the state placed troops in the city as its political crisis unfolded.

Elections, Office and the Cost Below

Prabowo took office in 2024 after winning the election in a landslide as Widodo’s continuity candidate. Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Widodo’s son, was elected vice-president alongside him. Lawmakers are now considering a probe into Gibran’s eligibility, which could be a first step toward removing him from office. The proposed parliamentary inquiry offers no account of power moving beyond elected office or the institutions that hold it.

The case has added pressure on Prabowo amid public discontent over his costly populist policies and weakening investor confidence in Indonesia’s US$1.5 trillion (S$1.9 trillion) economy. Those pressures frame the political stakes, while the reported actions—surveillance, arrests, troop deployment and a possible eligibility probe—remain concentrated among police, military and political institutions. At the top, officials contest authority. The people below are left with the consequences of decisions made inside those rooms.