J

akarta Deputy Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama will take over for Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s and become Jakarta'€™s top official, as Jokowi is scheduled to resign from his post to become president of the country.

The Constitutional Court rejected former presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto'€™s demand to overturn the General Elections Commission'€™s (KPU) decision that named Jokowi winner of the July 9 presidential election.

As Jokowi'€™s resignation nears, speculation regarding who will be tapped as Ahok'€™s deputy has begun to swirl in City Hall.

Ahok has multiple times stated that he desired an honest and hardworking deputy who would complement him.

'€œMy deputy should be a person who is a populist, free of corruption, cool, honest and capable of calming my temper,'€ he has said previously.

Ahok said that he personally preferred either PDI-P (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle) politician Djarot Saiful Hidayat or current Jakarta deputy governor Sarwo Handayani for spatial planning.

'€œPak Djarot was an outstanding mayor. He could contribute a lot to Jakarta,'€ Ahok has said.

Djarot, 59, was the mayor of Blitar, East Java, from 2000 until 2010. During his tenure, he strongly opposed the development of malls, shopping centers and grocery stores. As an alternative to their construction, he held discussions with street vendors and relocated their operations to the city'€™s
main square.

In April, Djarot won a seat at the House of Representatives as a member of the PDI-P, representing
East Java.

Besides Djarot, Ahok said that Sarwo Handayani '€” better known by her nickname Yani '€” would also make a good deputy governor

'€œIf I could choose, I would pick someone like Bu Yani. She is honest, dedicated and hardworking,'€ Ahok told reporters at City Hall in Central Jakarta on Friday.

Ahok said that he valued hardworking, honest people because individuals with those characteristics made good leaders, especially in a large city like Jakarta.

However, Ahok said that the final decision would fall to the PDI-P and the Gerindra Party, the parties represented by Jokowi and Ahok, respectively.

'€œI cannot choose. The PDI-P and Gerindra will make the decision. I can only suggest names and tell them the kind of person needed to help me lead the city, because being deputy governor of Jakarta is a difficult task,'€ he said.

The Gerindra Party has said that it would prefer for one of its politicians to be deputy governor.

The Jakarta Legislative Council'€™s Gerindra faction head, Muhammad Sanusi, who is also rumored to be a candidate, said that his party had demanded that the coalition propose two candidates each from the PDI-P and Gerindra to the City Council as part of the coalition'€™s pact.

'€œIf the PDI-P proposes candidates exclusively from its own party, we will not approve them and will just let Ahok lead the capital without a deputy until the end of his tenure,'€ Sanusi said.

Other individuals rumored to be in contention include Boy Bernardi Sadikin, son of late Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin and currently chairman of the PDI-P'€™s Jakarta branch, and Bambang Dwi Hartono, a PDI-P politician who has served as mayor of Surabaya, East Java.

Meanwhile, Ahok said that he was ready to become Jakarta governor.

He said that while he was a House member from the Golkar Party from 2009 through 2012, he had mulled leaving his post to run for Jakarta governor independently.

'€œI'€™ve always wanted to be the governor of Jakarta. There are so many things I feel I can help fix,'€
Ahok said.