Reasons Indonesian Citizens Support Soeharto as National Hero

KedaiKOPI surveyed public opinion on the proposal to grant national hero status to Soeharto, the 2nd President of the Republic of Indonesia.

The results showed that 80.7% of respondents supported Soeharto becoming a national hero, 15.7% rejected it, and 3.6% were undecided.

Among the group that supported the proposal, most respondents believed Soeharto succeeded in making Indonesia achieve food self-sufficiency.

There were also those who supported it because they considered Soeharto successful in carrying out national development.

Below is a list of reasons given by respondents who supported national hero status for Soeharto, according to the KedaiKOPI survey:

• Because he succeeded in making Indonesia food self-sufficient: 78% of respondents
• Because he succeeded in carrying out Indonesia's development: 77.9%
• Because of affordable schooling and cheap basic necessities: 63.2%
• Because of good political stability: 59.1%
• Others (eradicating PKI and communism, struggle for independence, military, etc.): 10%
• Don't know/irrelevant: 0.4%

KedaiKOPI conducted this online survey of 1,213 respondents spread across urban and rural areas of Indonesia from November 5-7, 2025.

The survey was then narrowed down to 979 respondents who supported Soeharto becoming a national hero.

Generally, most respondents were aged between 29-44 years (45.3%) and 45-60 years (38.4%).

The majority of respondents were high school graduates or equivalent (47.1%) and bachelor's/diploma 4 graduates (31.7%).

Most respondents obtained information about Soeharto from history/academic books (24.7%) and school/university education curricula (21.7%).