Indonesia election 2024: will Gibran’s chances be hurt by poll body’s ethics scandal?

The head of the General Elections Commission has been found guilty of not amending a rule before accepting Gibran’s election registration

Undecided or swing voters might avoid supporting the Prabowo-Gibran pair as a result of another ethics scandal, an analyst says

Reading Time:3 minutes

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto (left) and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the son of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, arrive for the presidential candidates’ debate in Jakarta on February 4. Photo: AP

Published: 10:00am, 7 Feb 2024Updated: 12:28pm, 7 Feb 2024

Gibran Rakabuming Raka, running mate to presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and President Joko Widodo’s son, has been tied to another ethics scandal regarding his registration with Indonesia’s election governing body, leading to questions about how it could impact his ticket at the February 14 polls.

On Monday, the Election Organization Ethics Council (DKPP) found Hasyim Asy’ari, the chairman of the General Elections Commission (KPU), as well as six commissioners, to be guilty of breaching ethics for not amending the organisation’s internal regulation on the minimum age of candidates before accepting Gibran’s registration.

The first scandal surrounding the candidacy of Gibran, the 36-year-old mayor of Surakarta in Central Java, occurred on October 16, when the Constitutional Court ruled that those below the age requirement of 40 were still eligible to run in a presidential election if they had already been elected to a different office.

The court’s ethics board later found the ruling to be unethical because Anwar Usman, Widodo’s brother-in-law who was also the court’s chief justice at the time of the ruling, had failed to recuse himself. Anwar was later demoted from his position and is barred from ruling on any future election-related cases.

However, the court’s ruling was allowed to stand, opening a path for Gibran to register with the KPU as the vice presidential candidate on Prabowo’s ticket on October 25.