Jakarta – Al Jazeera conducted an exclusive interview with the newly elected President of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto, which was uploaded to the television station’s YouTube channel on Sunday (12/5).

The renowned international media outlet highlighted Prabowo’s substantial electoral win, capturing nearly 60% of the votes in 32 provinces, and discussed the factors contributing to the success of the Prabowo-Gibran campaign message reaching the public.

During the interview, Prabowo mentioned that one of the factors influencing the success of his campaign was his experience in consistently conveying his campaign message to the public from previous elections, along with being the incumbent party.

“I think combination of factors, maybe precisely because i ran twice before. I think my message, my narrative, my principles reached the people, and this time of course i have to say that i felt that i basically became part of the incumbent team,” Prabowo stated.

Additionally, Al Jazeera noted the ‘Jokowi effect’ on Prabowo’s success in the 2024 Presidential Election. In response, Prabowo acknowledged this phenomenon, citing high public satisfaction with Jokowi’s administration as reflected in various national surveys.

“President Joko Widodo has what now 82-83% favorable rating in the public opinion polls, and of course, the people felt his commitment to bring betterment to the people’s conditions especially the poor. So yes, I think I did that Jokowi effect really help me also,” he remarked.

He also felt that he shared the same principles as Jokowi, which are focused on enhancing public welfare and eradicating poverty.

“He has the same principles as me. As children of Indonesia, we want our people to live with dignity. They cannot live in poverty,” he added.

Later, Al Jazeera asked about the challenges the Prabowo-Gibran campaign faced in communicating their message to the youth, a demographic that gave them more than 50% of the total vote.

Prabowo explained that job creation was a significant concern for young voters during the campaign. He also noted that young people, being the most technologically savvy generation, are adept at discerning genuine leadership from fabricated ones.

“You know the young they’re more concerned about jobs because this their future. The young generation lives in an era of social media, an information revolution, which is evolving very rapidly,” he said.

“I believe the young generation can quickly see who is genuine and who is fabricated,” he added.