The return of militarized regime? political discourse on Indonesia’s National Armed Forces bill in Tempo media

Indonesia’s draft National Armed Forces Law (TNI Bill) has reignited debates over the expansion of military influence in the post-Reformasi political order. This study examines how Tempo constructed the discursive TNI Bill controversy and represents protest events into a broader narrative of military resurgence and democratic decline. Using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, we analyzed N = 84 Tempo news articles published during the February-March 2025 controversy and triangulated our interpretations with N = 10 public documents to explore intertextual links and socio-political context. We identified three recurring discursive practices: depicting state repression against protesters; framing the bill as a threat to civil rights and civilian supremacy; and criticizing the expedited and opaque lawmaking that limited public scrutiny. The study offers a triadic discursive repertoire—repression, civilian supremacy, and procedural opacity—and develops it as a descriptive meso-level analytical framework for understanding how media organize multiple discursive elements into coherent narratives of democratic risk. The study contributes by offering a structured descriptive account of how protest events, normative claims, and institutional critique are interconnected in broader narratives of democratic decline.