Anthony Albanese’s pilgrimage to Jakarta this week as the new prime minister follows the standard post-election Hi Neighbours goodwill wave. But this time the parades and handshakes may get blurred by heat from Indonesia’s simmering Constitutional crisis.

The issue

Formal demands have been lodged by 332 retired senior soldiers and cops to sack Indonesia’s vice-president, and return the 25-year-old democracy to military rule – cries that should frighten Australia’s new government.

Yesteryear’s warriors want a return “to the original 1945 Constitution as the political legal system and government order”. The founding document has been amended four times since it was first written in 1945.

Till now the oldies’ move has been mainly the rattling of walking sticks; now its powerful Forum Purnawirawan TNI-Polri (Forum of Retired Military and Police) has reportedly asked the Parliament to dismiss Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming, former president Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s eldest son.

The complainants assert Gibran was illegally allowed to partner disgraced former general Prabowo Subianto at last year’s Presidential election in a nepotistic deal.

This was allegedly engineered by Jokowi in return for guarantees work would continue on his unfinished legacy project Nusantara, the US$36 billion new capital in Kalimantan on Borneo Island to replace overcrowded and sinking Jakarta. As usual, costs are blowing out.

Why stir?

The reasons behind the supposed reformers’ eight points for removing Gibran from the nation’s second-most important position are complex and ideological.

Their motives are also suspect. They haven’t yet suggested a replacement or called for a re-election. Gibran’s other faults are that he’s never worn a uniform, and comes from a civilian small-business background.

More seriously they’re not concerned with what Gibran has done – which is little. His principal error is that he got his job through a relative.

Gibran was barred from standing for election last year because he was under 40. That problem was fixed by his uncle Anwar Usman, the chair of the Constitutional Court.

He ruled that his nephew was immune from the ban because he’d been mayor of the small Central Java city of Solo.

The judge later lost his position for what his colleagues considered an unethical ruling – but his finding wasn’t rescinded. The critics want that changed.

Anwar’s decision meant Prabowo had what he needed for his 58% election success in a three-way contest. The law allows a president only two five-year terms so Jokowi could not recontest.

Why Gibran?

Campaign tacticians reckoned popular predecessor Jokowi lending his eldest to the race would draw youth to the ballot box, for voting isn’t compulsory.

The calculator-stabbers were probably right in drafting Gibran because more than 50% of electors were under 40, and thus had little experience of last century’s autocracy.

Now the vice-president is considered surplus to requirements, his continuing presence arousing envy. At 37, he’s nimble and half the age of his plump leader Prabowo, 73.

Gibran’s other flaws are that he’s rarely heard and seldom seen and then only when cutting ribbons. He comes across as a dour man who doesn’t enjoy his job, blinking in the sunlight of political reality.

It was different when he was shoulder tapped, shining with 21st century cool. By his side were TV presenter and beauty contest winner wife Selvi Ananda and two kids. The ad men salivated.

In normal times, such family qualities would be outstanding credentials in a country where personalities matter more than policies, but Gibran’s beloved came with baggage: She was a Catholic.

Not so good in a country where tolerance is claimed but rare; mosque influence is almost equal to that of the military. Love and ambition were stronger than faith, so Selvi converted.

Prabowo is often out of the country when the vice-president would be exercising his delegate’s powers – though probably mindful of early advice from his Dad who allegedly told him:

“Ojo kemajon” (don’t cross the line). This is typically cryptic Javanese, and Jokowi is a master of ambiguous statements.

Commentators reckon Papa was warning his commercial caterer offspring to remember his place and never eclipse the authoritarian and mercurial Prabowo who is known for going alone. Like Trump, he rarely consults his “ bloated Cabinet” of 48 ministers and 58 vice–ministers.(Jokowi had 34 ministers and 30 vice-ministers.)

Conspiracy theorists suggest Prabowo wants Gibran gone because he’s Jowowi’s secret agent – and who better to help open the door than soldiers.

The reaction

Prabowo could have intervened personally in the clamour and forcefully backed his vice-president, rebuked the stirrers (mainly former colleagues) and crushed the undermining gossip.

Instead, he got an eight-man leadership education agency he controls – the National Resilience Institute (Lembaga Ketahanan Nasional ) to declare that the vice-president’s election was valid.

Not being independent Constitutional academics, their leave-well-alone reasoning was suspect.

Prabowo also tossed another yesteryear warrior into the ring – not to heal, but confuse. Wiranto, 78, special adviser to the president for Politics and Security is a controversial figure allegedly involved in human rights abuses in East Timor like his boss – charges he’s denied.

In 1998, after the fall of Suharto, the role of Armed Forces Commander, sought by Prabowo, was landed by Wiranto. He later made an unsuccessful pitch for the presidency.

Wiranto has told the media that Prabowo “respects the aspirations” of the Forum and wants time to consider their concerns.

“(The President must) study them one by one, because these are not trivial issues, very fundamental issues … his power is also limited. In a country that adheres to the trias politica, there is a separation between the executive, legislative, and judiciary, they cannot interfere with each other there.

“The president’s attitude (is) not to disrupt, but to still respect."

The Chinese

If the petition to the legislature succeeds, neighbour Australia will have to recalibrate policies with the world’s largest population of Muslims; the PRC will be dragged in and outraged because his old mates also want Chinese workers deported. Their urgings fit a resurgence of Sinophobia and the march back to army control.

Prabowo has been cosying up to Beijing — his first overseas stop as president last November — and so he wants to stay sweet with the big funder.

The nickel mines in Sulawesi, which have put Australian smelters out of business by undermining prices, are believed to be largely managed by Chinese engineers and administrators. They’ve been funded by Beijing and the wheelchair battalions still hate Reds.

Dr Vedi Hadiz, professor of Asian Studies at Melbourne University, told Michael West Media that it’s in Prabowo’s interest to gradually sideline Gibran. “But he can’t risk the instability of a Constitutional crisis now, with the economy going the way it is.

“The Chinese will be concerned and look at Indonesian developments with a watchful eye. But they also know that no government can just suddenly expel them from nickel mining in which they allegedly have 75% control.”

As Canberra’s foreign affairs gurus open their keyboards, they’ll be asking AI: Is Indonesia coming apart – and if so, are we prepared? As relations with the folk next door have been ill-maintained for years, a ready-to-hand Plan B is unlikely.

In the 1965 coup, an estimated 500,000 were slaughtered in a military-organised genocide against real or imagined communists exposed by Australian academic Dr Jess Melvin. Be the deity Muslim, Christian or something else, the prayers will be for no-repeat – ever.