Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto recently said that he had long aimed for BRICS membership since the 2014 presidential election.

Late last month, Indonesia declared its intentions to join BRICS, which is made up of original members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The announcement came just a few days after Prabowo officially rose to power. Prabowo is now on a multi-nation tour and is currently in Rio de Janeiro for the G20 summit. He also attended an Indonesia-Brazil business forum on the sidelines. 

It was in this forum that Prabowo tried to convince the Brazilian businesses about how he seriously takes BRICS, saying that membership to the economic alliance has been one of his long-time campaign promises. He even told the forum that Brazil was a “key leading member” in the BRICS grouping as Indonesia requested for a membership.

“[Back in] 2014 when I ran for president, I announced that I would bring Indonesia to join BRCS,” Prabowo said. 

“I was installed on Oct. 20, and [established] my cabinet [a day later]. … I [immediately] sent my foreign minister [Sugiono] to the BRICS’ Kazan summit]. We want to join Brazil and the other BRICS countries. We think that this will be a significant new element in the new global economy,” Prabowo added. 

Prabowo had to go against his predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in the 2014 election, which the latter won. The two faced each other again in the 2019 race with Jokowi getting reelected for a second term. Jokowi also picked Prabowo as his defense minister. The political rivals-turned-friends, however, have contrasting approaches to BRICS. 

Jokowi said last year that Indonesia was not in a rush to join BRICS. On the other hand, Prabowo has made BRICS one of his first orders of business post-inauguration. 

BRICS started out with some informal ministerial talks in 2006 and only held its full-scale leaders’ meeting in 2009. In other words, BRICS was relatively a new group back in 2014. The group -- which aims to counter Western dominance of global governance structures -- now has new members, namely Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has yet to officially join BRICS despite having received an invitation from the bloc. By being part of BRICS, Indonesia will have a chance to access new sources of funding from the group’s New Development Bank (NDB). 

BRICS has made Indonesia as one of its partner countries, a status that puts Jakarta on probation before it can become a full-fledged member.