On August 1, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto requested approval from the House of Representatives to grant pardons to two prominent figures recently convicted in separate corruption cases: former Trade Minister Thomas Trikasih Lembong and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle Secretary-General Hasto Kristiyanto.
The request was confirmed by House Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, who said the president’s letters had arrived the day before and were quickly discussed by legislative leaders and senior officials. Dasco said Prabowo submitted two separate letters: one focused on Lembong and another covering 1,116 convicts, including Hasto. That scale suggests the administration’s clemency push is broader than the two political names that have drawn the most attention.
Justice Minister Supratman Andi Agtas said the pardons were based on thorough consideration and framed the decision as an effort to preserve national unity. He also said both men had made positive contributions to the country, though he did not detail those contributions. The language matters because it casts clemency not as a rejection of the corruption findings but as a political and constitutional judgment about the national interest.
Hasto was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for bribing a senior election official in a case linked to a parliamentary seat for fellow PDI-P politician Harun Masiku. Both he and the Corruption Eradication Commission have filed appeals. Lembong, who served as trade minister from 2015 to 2016, received a 4.5-year sentence in a sugar-import corruption case prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office.
The request comes at a time when Prabowo is still shaping the tone of his presidency and the relationship between executive authority and political rivals. By linking the pardons to unity, the government is signaling that it wants to look past some of the country’s most visible political prosecutions, even as the underlying cases remain contested through appeals.
KPK Chairman Setyo Budiyanto responded by saying the president has that authority under the constitution. That answer did not settle the political debate, but it did underline that the issue is now moving through institutional channels rather than street-level confrontation or ad hoc bargaining.
For both Lembong and Hasto, the president’s move offers a possible route out of prison despite recent convictions. For Prabowo, it is a high-stakes test of how he intends to use the powers of his office: as a strict enforcer of anti-corruption norms, or as a broker trying to defuse political conflict in the name of stability.
The political meaning of the request is as important as the legal one. By invoking national unity, Prabowo is trying to place the pardons inside a broader story of reconciliation rather than of favoritism. But because the beneficiaries are prominent opposition figures, the move is inevitably being read as a statement about how he wants to manage rivals and the institutions that prosecuted them.
The appeals already filed by Hasto and the fact that Lembong’s case remains fresh make the timing especially sensitive. A pardon does not erase the underlying political debate about corruption, yet it can change the direction of the story by shifting attention from punishment to executive discretion. That is what makes this request significant: it tests how Prabowo intends to balance anti-corruption enforcement, coalition politics and the constitutional authority of the presidency.
