Military After graduating from the
Indonesian Military Academy in 1971, he became a
second lieutenant at the communications battalion of
Kostrad. He then served as a technical officer at the Indonesian contingent for the
United Nations Emergency Force in
Egypt, before becoming the communications company commander of a Kostrad infantry brigade. He was then assigned to the
Washington, D.C. Embassy as an aide to the defense attache, before becoming a secretary to the
Panglima in 1983 and a general planning staff at
TNI headquarters. After further diplomatic placements, he was promoted to
brigadier general in 1997, became the deputy head of public affairs in 1998, and eventually head of public affairs in 1999 along with a promotion to
major general. During the presidency of
Abdurrahman Wahid, Sudrajat openly disputed with Wahid on the interpretation of the
Indonesian Constitution about the president having authority over all military branches, with Sudrajat stating that the Constitution does not imply the
President of Indonesia being the highest commander of the
Indonesian National Armed Forces. He was then removed from his post as head of the military's public affairs department. He also opposed to a military district reorganization proposal in 1999, going against then-
Panglima Widodo Adi Sutjipto. Following his removal from public affairs, he became a special staff to the
Panglima on economics. Eventually, he became the
director-general of defense strategy at the
Ministry of Defense in 2003. He retired on 11 November 2004, holding the rank of
Major General while still working at the ministry. Contemporary major general
Agus Wirahadikusumah was quoted as saying that "[Sudrajat] did not understand signals of professionality in the army." He was attacked by some legislators from the
People's Representative Council in 2006, when he was not present during the legislators' visit. While he was ambassador, he aided the investigation into a corruption case by his predecessor, which eventually led to a conviction. His tenure as ambassador ended on 27 November 2009. Following his time as ambassador, he would serve as the chairman of the Indonesia-China Economic, Social and Cultural Cooperation Foundation.
Susi Air Susi Pudjiastuti, the founder and CEO of
Susi Air, was appointed as
Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries by
Joko Widodo in 2014. She then decided to resign as CEO, and appointed Sudrajat to replace her. Before this appointment, Sudrajat had been the president commissioner of the company since 2004, with the company initially starting from Sudrajat's house in
Kebayoran Baru.
Politics In 2011, he was one of the founders of
Nasdem in
West Java, when it was still a mass organization. Not long after, however, he resigned when Nasdem registered to become a political party, citing that one of Nasdem's initial vision was to become a mass organization and not a political party. His departure was followed by a mass resignation of the central committee of Nasdem in the province. Sudrajat ran for governorship of
West Java in the
2018 gubernatorial election with the backing of three parties -
Gerindra,
PKS and
PAN - and
Bekasi Vice Mayor
Ahmad Syaikhu as his running mate. During the campaigning period, he openly declared that his victory would mean a presidential change in the
2019 presidential election, and endorsed the
#2019GantiPresiden movement. While forecast to win just around 8% of the votes in surveys preceding the election, Sudrajat ended up winning 28.74% of the votes (6,317,465), placing second behind
Bandung mayor
Ridwan Kamil (with
Gerindra claiming that their internal survey placed Sudrajat in the first place). Close to Kamil's swearing in, his campaign team demanded the ceremony be cancelled due to administrative errors conducted. He was part of
Prabowo Subianto's
2014 presidential campaign team, as one of its spokespersons. He retained that position in the
2019 campaign team. ==Awards==