Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama has said Bandung Mayor Ridwan '€œEmil'€ Kamil was someone who could seriously challenge his ambition to be reelected in the 2017 election.

Anyone who had experience leading a region also had great potential to lead the capital, Ahok said, citing President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo as an example. Jokowi was elected as Jakarta governor in the 2012 election after serving as the governor of Surakarta, Central Java.

 '€œTherefore, he [Ridwan Kamil] could defeat me,'€ said Ahok as reported by kompas.com on Monday.

Emil, who has been considered successful in his role leading the administration of the capital city of West Java, has been nominated by a number of political parties, including the Gerindra Party, Democratic Party and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) to become a Jakarta gubernatorial candidate.

However, Emil has not decided whether he will take part in the election.

Meanwhile, Ahok will seek reelection as an independent candidate as his supporters, known as Friends of Ahok (Teman Ahok), have managed to collect 630,000 photocopies of Jakarta citizens'€™ identity cards, more than enough of to satisfy the independent candidate requirements.

Ahok says he is a good friend of Emil, but his relationship with him would have no bearing on the 2017 gubernatorial election.

In a recent survey carried out by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Ahok'€™s electability rating stands at 45 percent in the capital city, while Emil'€™s is 15.75 percent, followed by Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini at 7.75 percent and former youth and sports minister Adhyaksa Dault with 4.25 percent.

The survey from which those results were taken involved 400 Jakartan voters and was carried out between Jan. 5 and Jan. 10 with a margin of error of 4.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the Friends of Ahok community had lunch with Ahok at City Hall on Monday. During the meeting, they sought clarification from Ahok if he would seek the endorsement of political parties to run in the 2017 election.

Ahok stressed that he would take part in the race as an independent candidate although it was previously reported that several political parties such as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the NasDem Party and the National Mandate Party (PAN) intended to nominate him as their candidate in the gubernatorial race.

'€œWhen they heard that I would seek support from political parties, they lost their enthusiasm to collect photocopies of IDs,'€ Ahok said, adding that in May he would declare himself an independent candidate when Friends of Ahok had managed to collect one million ID copies. (bbn)  (+)

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