JAKARTA, Indonesia — The odds have never looked better for Prabowo Subianto to win Indonesia’s highest office.

A former military general, Prabowo was dismissed for alleged human rights abuses, exiled in Jordan, then banned from the U.S. for two decades. He’s temperamental, volatile and known for pounding tables and fiery nationalist speeches. The former son-in-law of Indonesia’s late dictator Suharto, he twice lost the race to become president to Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi. The last time, in 2019, he fought a bitter months-long campaign to overturn the results before eventually joining Jokowi’s cabinet as defense minister.

Today, as he stands on the cusp of potentially claiming an outright win in elections scheduled on Feb. 14, Prabowo is reaping the rewards of an extensive image makeover. Over the past few months, helped by a social media campaign that features his cats, dance videos and cartoonized portraits, the 72-year-old has tried to come off as a cuddly grandpa.

He’s also more affable in public appearances. And most significantly, he’s successfully ridden the coat tails of the very man who beat him the last two times: the country’s most popular politician, Jokowi, whose 36-year-old son Prabowo picked as his running mate.

The success of that makeover is evident among young voters - and more than half of the country’s 200 million voters are under 40.

Take Rika Karmila, a 30-year-old content creator who was among the thousands of supporters who attended a rally in the capital Jakarta last month. Like others at the event, she was dressed in light blue, the campaign’s official color, danced to their hip-hop theme song, waved the Indonesian flag and cheered loudly when Prabowo did his iconic ‘adorable dance’ on stage.

To Rika, voting for Prabowo is obvious: he is a “sincere” leader on his third bid for presidency and an ally of younger citizens. Asked, she brushes aside the allegations of Prabowo’s dark past.

“Those are attacks on Prabowo. He was following orders and if he was actually wrong, he wouldn’t be in the government,” she said at the rally, referring to his alleged role in kidnapping student activists during the anti-government protests in 1998. Later, supporters erected a 4-meter-tall cartoon portrait of the ex-general cuddling a cat.

Jokowi picked Prabowo as his defense minister as an act of reconciliation, after the campaign’s bitterness that led to deadly clashes in Jakarta. Today, many analysts see the president’s implicit support for Prabowo as Jokowi’s way of continuing to influence politics — and cement his legacy — after he steps down later this year.

To Rika, voting for Prabowo is also the surest bet to continuing Jokowi’s economic policies so that Indonesia could one day “become equal to a country like America.”

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