By Ananda Teresia
JAKARTA, Nov 5 (Reuters) - An Indonesian police probe into the wiretapping of President Prabowo Subianto's phone was a matter for law enforcement, the country's police chief said on Thursday, as the scandal exposed the deepening cracks between Prabowo and his former backer and predecessor, Joko Widodo.
"We assure you that this is purely law enforcement and has nothing to do with rivalries or anything else," police chief Suyudi Ario Seto told reporters without elaborating, adding that the arrests must serve as a lesson for the police.
Prabowo took office in 2024 after winning the election in a landslide as the continuity candidate for Widodo, known also as Jokowi, whose son Gibran Rakabuming Raka was also elected as Prabowo's vice president.
After details of the wiretapping scandal emerged, several lawmakers said on Thursday they were considering launching a parliamentary inquiry into Gibran's eligibility to serve after questions were raised about his election credentials, a move analysts saw as the first step to potentially remove him from office.
The wiretapping involved a Jokowi loyalist, and a spokesperson for Prabowo said intercepting the president's communications could amount to treason.
Three senior police officers were arrested on Tuesday, including former national police chief and Prabowo's chief of staff, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, for allegedly tapping the phones of Prabowo as well as other politicians, journalists, civil society organisations, government officials, and business people since 2025.
Prabowo sacked Listyo, widely known as a Widodo loyalist, the next day.
The scandal has piled more pressure on the president, with public discontent growing over his costly populist policies and weakening investor confidence in Indonesia's $1.5 trillion economy.
Neither the government nor police investigators have yet disclosed the motives behind the wiretapping.
Jokowi told reporters on Thursday that he respected the legal process.
POTENTIAL IMPEACHMENT OF VP
Political parties have started discussions to invoke parliament's right to hold an inquiry into the vice president following the wiretapping case, said Hasto Kristiyanto, a senior official with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the biggest party in parliament and the only one outside of Prabowo's coalition.
They are following up on rulings by the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court that Gibran's foreign senior high school credentials did not meet domestic legal requirements for vice-presidential candidates, and had been improperly accepted by election officials in 2024.
"There's increasingly intensive dialogue in the parliament to invoke their constitutional rights especially after the wiretapping," Hasto said.
Three other parties in parliament - all within Prabowo's coalition - were also considering an inquiry into the matter, party officials said.
Under the constitution, lawmakers can launch an investigation into allegations of legal or constitutional violations by the government.
"We are currently reviewing these options and also communicating with other political parties," said Muhammad Kholid, a senior official of the Prosperous Justice Party.
The vice president's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Prabowo's coalition controls 81% of parliament. Neither Jokowi nor Gibran belongs to a party represented in parliament.
Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a senior visiting fellow at Singapore's Yusof Ishak Institute, said the inquiry process would likely lead to Gibran's impeachment.
"It's ultimately leading to Gibran's impeachment and some think they no longer need to do an investigation because there are already rulings from two courts," he said, adding it looks increasingly unlikely that Jokowi and Prabowo would mend their relationship.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Gayatri Suroyo and David Stanway)
