An old clip of Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia’s defence minister who ran in the February 2024 presidential election, has resurfaced with a false claim that it shows him congratulating his opponent Anies Baswedan for winning the race. The video actually shows Prabowo cheering for Anies’ victory in the Jakarta gubernatorial election in 2017, when Prabowo’s party endorsed Anies’ candidacy. In the 2024 presidential poll, Prabowo — who is on course to win by a wide margin — has already declared victory.
“Anies won!” says the Indonesian-language caption of a TikTok post uploaded on February 20, 2024.
It shares a 48-second of Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto giving a speech while standing next to Anies Baswedan.
“Prabowo: This Is an Honour,” says the sticker text on video, which has been viewed more than 5,200 times.
“Finally Prabowo admits (his defeat) and congratulates Anies RB (Rasyid Baswedan) on his win”, it continues to say.
In the video, Prabowo says, “We started at this place, and we are here today, I have the honour to congratulate Anies Rasyid Baswedan,” and then greets Anies amid applauds and cheers.
He then says: “This is a victory for democracy and we certainly cannot do it without the supports from national figures who are supporting Anies.”
The TikTok post was shared by a pro-Anies account days after Indonesia held its presidential election on February 14, 2024.
The video has been viewed more than 18,000 times after it circulated alongside a similar claim on TikTok here and here, and Facebook here.
It also appeared on X, where it has been reshared more than 230 times.
But the claim is false.
Prabowo — who has been accused of ordering the abduction of democracy activists in the late 1990s — declared victory on February 14 after both preliminary counts from government-approved pollsters and the slower official count indicated he would win high office (archived link).
The final result is not expected until late March 2024, but official tallies with more than 77 percent of the votes counted as of February 29 showed Prabowo winning by a wide margin.
The election commission’s website showed the 72-year-old ex-general had a commanding 58.83 percent of the votes, more than double his nearest rival and likely enough for a first-round majority.
Anies, a former Jakarta governor, received 24.49 percent of votes while former Central Jakarta Ganjar Pranowo had 16.68 percent.
2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election
The logo of the Indonesian news outlet Kompas TV can be seen in the top right-hand corner of the video shared in the false post.
A keyword search on the official YouTube account of Kompas TV found the original video, published on April 19, 2017 (archived link). “Anies-Sandi is winning, watch Prabowo’s comments on this,” says the title of the video.
It was the day of the Jakarta gubernatorial election run-off, when Anies won against the Chinese Christian governor at the time, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.
The video from Kompas TV shows Prabowo standing between Anies and his running mate, Sandiaga Uno, who is currently the minister of tourism and creative economy.
Both politicians were backed by Prabowo-led Gerindra Party and the Prosperous Justice Party at the time, as reported by local media here and here (archived links here and here).
The part where Prabowo congratulates Anies can be seen at the 1:12 mark of the six-minute, 40-second long video.
The original footage shows the preliminary Jakarta election results announced by pollster Litbang Kompas at the bottom, with Anies and Sandiaga securing nearly 58 percent of the votes. But the video in the false posts is cropped and does not show the 2017 election results.
The genuine video also shows Prabowo standing between Anies and Sandiaga. The video in the false posts only shows Anies standing next to the Gerindra chairman, not Sandiaga.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the original video from Kompas TV (right):
The original video begins with Prabowo saying: “Praise be to God, we just received news that with 90 percent of the quick count (votes) coming in, it shows that Jakarta has got a new governor and deputy governor.”
The Kompas TV footage also shows Prabowo mentioning the names of both Anies and Sandiaga as he congratulates the two politicians.
However, these parts are not included in the false video.
Prabowo’s congratulatory remarks on Anies-Sandiaga’s victory was also covered by other local media, such as Liputan 6 and Berita Satu (archived links here and here).
Anies won the Jakarta’s top post following a bitterly fought election, during which he was accused of stoking religious divides and criticised for pandering to Islamist hard-liners who helped organise mass protests against his Christian rival.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about Indonesia’s 2024 elections here.