Prabowo Subianto secured a thumping victory in Indonesia’s presidential election following a hard-fought three-way campaign. Polls going into the Feb. 14 contest suggested his likely victory, but many analysts had predicted a second-round runoff. Instead, the defense minister soared past his opponents on the first try, delivering an unexpected landslide with a projected 58 percent of the votes.
Prabowo’s triumph had many causes. But its scale points to a wider trend, namely the surprising popularity of political leaders in many of Asia’s emerging-market democracies. Heads of government in rich Western nations are almost universally reviled—and in many parliamentary systems, their dwindling parties often find it increasingly difficult even to cobble together ruling coalitions.
