Officials' Lackluster Public Communication

Public communication is not an optional extra in governance. In the age of social media, a single sentence out of an official's mouth can travel in a matter of seconds.

Mulutmu, harimaumu, the Indonesian saying warns: your own mouth is the tiger that mauls you. If words are left unguarded and end in a blunder, they can boomerang back, erode a reputation, and drain public trust. More than a few official statements have ended up lodged in the public memory more firmly than the substance of the policy they were meant to convey.

The public communication of President Prabowo Subianto and several officials in the Merah Putih Cabinet has once again captured public attention. Coarse word choices, language deemed ill-suited to the moment, and statements that went on to spark controversy have all circulated widely on social media.

The latest came as Prabowo delivered a speech at the culmination of the 79th National Cooperatives Day commemoration in Jakarta on Saturday (12/7/2026). The President remarked that those pessimistic about Indonesia's future were welcome to look for another country. "Those who have doubts, feel free to just sit at home. Those who feel Indonesia is bleak, go ahead and look for another country, no one is stopping you. If you're in Indonesia, let us unite, let us work together. Let the strong help the weak," Prabowo said, as quoted from the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube channel.

Another blunder came when former Deputy Minister of Manpower Immanuel Ebenezer responded to the hashtag #KaburAjaDulu, roughly "just flee first," a movement of Indonesians airing their wish to work or live abroad. "Want to flee? Then flee. And if it comes to it, don't come back!" Immanuel said in an open interview with several media outlets on 17 February 2025.

For Yanti Amiliani, S.I.P., M.I.Kom., a lecturer in Communication Sciences at Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (UMS), the matter carries weight because it speaks to an official's capacity to build empathy with the people.

"An official is a policymaker whose decisions carry wide consequences for society. So when delivering information, the first thing that must be shown is empathy, so that the public feels the government stands with them," said Amilia, as she is familiarly known, on Friday (17/7/2026).

Effective communication does more than deliver information; it builds trust. According to Amilia, the public does not merely hear the content of a message. It also reads the disposition revealed through word choice, intonation, and the manner in which a public official speaks.

Honesty, Amilia said, is the next essential trait an official must hold. Information conveyed must rest on facts and data that can withstand scrutiny.

"An honest message gives rise to consistency. Especially now, when every statement is documented on social media. The public can very easily compare what was once said with what was actually done," she said. It is precisely this gap between word and deed that has become one cause of officials' falling credibility in the public eye.

The communication failures of Prabowo Subianto and several government officials show that word choice is never a trivial matter. A sentence intended as a joke, a spontaneous remark, or a display of firmness can land altogether differently among a public shaped by varied backgrounds, experiences, and interests.

Amilia argued that words with the potential to offend should be avoided, because they can shift the public's focus away from the substance at hand.

"When an official isn't careful in choosing words, it can create serious problems. The public may end up wondering, why does this government seem to show so little empathy for the problems we're facing together?" she said pointedly.

She offers an example: when the public is grappling with economic hardship, disaster, or social conflict, what they need is communication that calms rather than statements liable to provoke. A leader's task is not only to make decisions but also to steady the public mood through the right kind of communication.

A blundering statement damages more than the individual's image. In the communication theory Amilia describes, a communication failure can also affect the legitimacy of government policy as a whole.

Amilia stated that the public will find a policy harder to accept once trust in the official delivering it has already eroded.

"A statement that isn't grounded in data, isn't consistent, or shows no empathy can badly damage our people's trust. Yet every policy needs public support to run well," she said.

Trust, she continued, is social capital that cannot be built through programme achievements alone. How the government explains the reasoning behind a policy is equally decisive in whether the public accepts it.

The communication of Prabowo Subianto's cabinet has also revived discussion about the role of a communication advisor within government. Amilia notes that the ability to speak is not the same as the ability to communicate, and not everyone has the second.

"Everyone can speak, but not everyone possesses communication skills. A person with those skills knows how to adjust their language to whoever they're addressing, so the message is understood without breeding misunderstanding," she said.

The presence of a professional communication advisor, she argued, is important in helping officials shape a strategy for delivering messages, particularly on sensitive issues ripe for misreading.

The purpose of government communication in any speech is, in truth, not only to convey information but to build a sense of security and public trust. So when an official's statement has already touched off controversy, the first step is to acknowledge the error.

To Amilia, officials ought to have the grace to apologise when their words have wounded the people. "After apologising, the government also needs to clarify the intent behind the statement with correct, fact-based information, so that public trust can be restored," she suggested.

Learning public speaking is, like it or not, an obligation for those in public office. It allows an official to build sensitivity to what the public is living through and to grasp the weight of every word spoken.

Amilia named several figures she considered exemplars of good public communication, among them former Foreign Ministers Retno Marsudi and Marty Natalegawa. Outside government, she pointed to Haedar Nashir, chairman of the Muhammadiyah Central Board, whose style she described as calm, reasoned, and steadying.

The quality of official communication, she said, will only grow more decisive amid the rushing current of digital information. Because every utterance can be seized on and spread by the public within seconds, even a carefully designed policy can lose its support if communicated without care.

Writer: Genis Dwi Gustati

Translator: Farizal Luqman Majid

Editor: Al Habiib Josy Asheva