The Missing Chair in Indonesia's Policymaking

By Nita Safira, Government Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of FinanceIn the first week of July 2026, a senior aide at the Presidential Staff Office appeared on a podcast to discuss the Red-and-White Village Cooperatives—or Koperasi Desa Merah Putih—the government’s village cooperative program for farmers and fishermen. Within hours, a clip explaining why aspiring cooperative managers would undergo military-style training went viral. The policy itself disappeared from the conversation. A program meant to reach millions of rural households lost the news cycle to the way it was explained.This was not an isolated communications failure. In its October 2025 review of the Prabowo-Gibran administration’s first year, think tank Lab 45 recorded 81 policy-related communication missteps and 70 personal ones, 151 in total, or roughly one every two and a half days.