May 31, 2024
JAKARTA – The Supreme Court’s decision this week to approve changes to the age restrictions for candidates in the 2024 regional elections has sparked fresh fears of political interference in the judiciary, amid speculation that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s son may run in the upcoming Jakarta gubernatorial race.
The court swiftly approved a petition by minnow party Garuda calling for the 30-year age minimum to be revised, at a time when several political parties are testing the waters on who to field for the November elections.
Among the names that have been floated is that of 29-year-old Kaesang Pangarep, the youngest son of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who would not have been eligible to run before the recent ruling.
On Wednesday, the court ordered the General Elections Commission (KPU) to overturn a 2020 rule stipulating that candidates running for governor or deputy governor must be 30 by the time they are cleared to run.
Instead, the justices pushed back the timeline, ruling that candidates must be 30 by the time they are inaugurated.
“It is so that Indonesia can be led by youngsters,” a Garuda spokesperson said, as quoted by Reuters.
The ruling coincided with the buzz around Kaesang, who appeared on a mock poster posted on social media by a top Gerindra Party official as a potential running mate for lawmaker Budisatrio Djiwandono in the Jakarta election.
Kaesang will turn 30 in December, around the time when the KPU is set to announce the regional elections results.
Gerindra secretary-general Ahmad Muzani said Budisatrio was a possible candidate that “we are currently preparing to lead Jakarta”. He did not speak to Kaesang’s candidacy.
Read also: Gerindra mulls pairing Prabowo’s nephew with Kaesang for Jakarta race
Budisatrio, nephew of president-elect Prabowo Subianto, has also been paired with actor Raffi Ahmad, a frequent business partner of Kaesang’s, as a potential candidate duo for the Central Java gubernatorial election.
Familiar tactics
The Supreme Court ruling comes amid widespread concerns over the prevelance of dynastic politics and policymaking on the fly, which undermine democratic safeguards, including in the judiciary.
The three-member bench came to a final decision just three days after the start of the petition’s deliberation.
The fact that the ruling was issued when the process of registering electoral candidates was underway raises suspicions of political interference, said Titi Anggraini, an election law lecturer at the University of Indonesia.
“The Supreme Court decision seems to replicate a similar case examination from the recent presidential election,” she told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Kaesang’s elder brother, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, secured the vice presidency in February with the help of similarly controversial changes to age minimums in the 2017 Elections Law. Garuda was among the petitioners that challenged the rule at the Constitutional Court last year.
Read also: BREAKING: Constitutional Court opens door for Jokowi’s son to run in presidential poll
Following the ruling, the KPU allowed Gibran to register as a VP candidate without revising an internal regulation to comply with the ruling.
KPU chair Hasyim Asy’ari and the election body’s six commissioners were subsequently found guilty of an ethics breach. Constitutional Court chief justice Anwar Usman, Gibran’s uncle, was also demoted.
But Supreme Court spokesman Suharto told the Post that the timing of the ruling was “ideal”, saying it was in line with “the principle of trying a case without undue delay”.
KPU commissioner Idham Holik said the election body “must wait for a formal copy of the ruling” before making any changes to the regulation in question.
Legal uncertainty
Titi, a member of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), argued that the ruling would only bring legal uncertainty to the election process, considering that prevailing rules still stipulated a minimum age of 30 for gubernatorial candidates.
Changes would thus have to be made to the 2016 Regional Elections Law for Kaesang to be able to run for deputy governor of Jakarta.
“Because age requirements are regulated in the Regional Elections Law, any appeal would have to be filed with the Constitutional Court and not the Supreme Court,” she told the Post.
Based on the language of the law, Titi said, the age requirement should be applied at the candidate stage – when candidates first register up until the KPU deems them eligible to run – not when a candidate has already been elected.