With nation-wide criticism against President Joko ‘Jokowi” Widodo’s capitalising his position and his in-law Anwar Usman, who is the chairman of the Constitutional Court, to push his son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run as a vice presidential candidate in 2024 elections, whoever picks him as his running-mate could end up as the common enemy of many people and cost him the presidency.
However, it is still also a big if whether the people can unite to resist Jokowi’s ambition. But aren’t we all supposed to be fed up with his lies and deception?
After a legal circus that tricked many journalists, observers, and public across Indonesia as a whole, angering Saldi Isra, one of the more committed justices, the Constitutional Court, presided by Usman, ruled Monday to allow anybody under the age of 40 years old with an experience of holding a position as a state official elected through general elections, such as regent, mayor or governor to contest in the presidential election, paving way for 36-year-old Gibran to run in the upcoming elections.
The protesters who were ready to circle the Court, went home knowing that the justices had rejected the case, only to find later that they accepted another case, and issued a ruling legalising Gibran to run.
To say that this whole legal circus is ridiculous and unprecedented is an understatement.
Monday’s legal hearing was held only to serve one and only one young man – albeit he is a son of Jokowi – to legalise him to run in 2024 although as has been pointed out by Saldi Isra that the ruling was very surprising, unusual and flawed without solid legal basis. The law has been used to serve personal ambition.
In fact, according to Saldi, some justices have pushed the court to hear the case, and quickly issue a ruling as if they were on a mission to get it done before the registration for presidential candidates opens later this week and before it is closed on October 25.
While this flawed ruling will be remembered by the public, with Saldi explaining publicly how strange and ridiculous the deliberation process has been and how the justices changed their opinion so fast after Usman joined the final hearing, the ruling has been issued and it is binding and final. Legally, there is nothing to stop Gibran from running.
Ex-general Prabowo Subianto, who is fully supported by Jokowi, has been delaying picking up his running-mate to wait for this ruling, to ultimately pick Gibran as his running-mate, believing that Jokowi’s high popularity based on some surveys – standing between 70-80 percent – will translate into votes for his son Gibran and into himself.
But considering how massive people’s rejection against nepotism and Jokowi’s attempt to build his own political dynasty have been, Gibran could become a liability rather than an asset, pitting Prabowo-Gibran pair as a common enemy for people fed up with Jokowi and afraid of Prabowo’s unpredictable behaviour.
Without Gibran in the equation Prabowo actually leads the three-horse race, again according to some surveys, with young voters, who are far removed from what happened during the New Order Era, seemingly favouring him over Anies Baswedan or Ganjar Pranowo.
Adding Gibran will not necessarily guarantee Prabowo’s victory. In fact, he could otherwise drag him down. Furthermore, we should also question the validity of Jokowi’s super extraordinary popularity, and whether it can translate into voting for the pair.
Prior to the ruling, some notable figures have expressed their dismay over Jokowi’s push for Gibran to join Prabowo in the race, circulating a petition to fight against what they called the merging of Jokowi’s dynasty and New Order Dynasty.
It takes almost 10 years or almost a full two-term of presidency for influential pro-democracy intellectual Goenawan Mohamad and a number of like-minded figures to realise how wrong they have been all this time about Jokowi.
When Jokowi emerged as a presidential contender against ex-general Prabowo Subianto in a two-horse race in 2014, for people like Goenawan the then Jakarta governor was the obvious choice. It was almost by default for Goenawan to vote for the former Solo mayor because he surely could not take side with Prabowo, seen as the continuation of authoritarian Soeharto and his suppressive New Order Regime he had been fiercely fighting against.
In fact, it is a decent and logical move for him and others that not only did they lend Jokowi their full moral support but also they worked hard to influence people to vote for him.
But almost a decade later, they must eventually admit publicly they have been betrayed, with Goenawan stating it best: “I’ve been fooled”.
But why should they wait until now, until almost too late? They stayed silent when the anti-corruption law was revised to paralyse the Corruption Eradication Commission, when the Omnibus Law was passed, when artists were prosecuted, when Jokowi’s son and son-in-law were facilitated to run for mayors, and won it.
To be totally honest, for the last 10 years Goenawan and other intellectuals also enjoy the benefits of becoming the gatekeepers, the supporters of the winner, of being part of the ruling elites. They themselves, as Goenawan himself put it when describing Jokowi’s hunger for power, become an addict to power.
Can this elitist resistance translate into booting Prabowo-Gibran on election day? No, they can’t because this group plus other educated Indonesians maximum only constitutes around 10 percent of the total voters.
So, if this resistance can have any chance of stopping Prabowo-Gibran, they must be supported by people from all walks of life. Or, the people themselves can show that they have had enough of Jokowi’s lies and deception, proving what Abraham Lincoln reminded us almost 200 years ago that “you can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Or, are we forever too foolish to see the evil, and what’s better for our nation?
Because if Prabowo-Gibran wins the election and rules Indonesia, the consequences will be massive and there will be no turning back. Prabowo will rule Indonesia for at least 10 years, and we don’t know what will happen after. Will he try to change the constitution and stay in power for as long as he likes?
And if Jokowi’s dynasty takes over after Prabowo, two sons and one son in law will rule in turn – meaning 30 years with 10 years each – while waiting for Jokowi’s grandson, Jan Ethes, now 6 years old, to be old enough to take over.
Indonesia can become a family-run nation before we know it.
