T

he 2019 presidential race is set to continue on course as candidates submit their wealth reports to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as part of the requirements for running next year.

Vice-presidential hopeful Sandiaga Uno is the richest candidate in the 2019 two-horse presidential race with his wealth reported at Rp 5.1 trillion (US$349 million).

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s running mate Ma’ruf Amin, who departed for haj on Wednesday morning, has yet to submit his wealth report.

According to wealth reports disclosed by the KPK, most of Sandiaga’s fortune is derived from securities worth Rp 4.7 trillion.

Prabowo ranked second with his wealth reported at Rp 1.9 trillion, around 90 percent of which also came from securities.

Jokowi’s wealth, meanwhile, is only a tiny fraction of that of his rivals at Rp 50 billion, largely derived from several plots of land and properties in Central Java worth Rp 43 billion.

Ma’ruf’s most recent wealth report dates back to 2001, when he was a member of the House of Representatives for the National Awakening Party (PKB), and shows Rp 427 million in net assets.

The KPK has set a deadline for candidate wealth report submissions on Aug. 21.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) announced all four presidential and vice-presidential candidates had passed the medical check-up and were found to be physically and mentally fit to perform the duties of office as well as being drug-free.

“In layman’s terms, they are declared to have met the criteria,” KPU chairman Arief Budiman said on Tuesday night.

The KPU will complete the verification of the other documents submitted by the candidates and will disclose its findings to the camps by Friday.

Candidates will have until Aug. 20 to revise and complete any incorrect or missing documents. If all goes well, the KPU will declare the official candidate list on Sept. 20, with the campaign period starting three days later.

It has not been all smooth sailing for the Jokowi campaign, however, as former Constitutional Court justice and potential running mate Mahfud MD made a tell-all appearance on popular talk show Indonesia Lawyer’s Club on Tuesday night.

On the show, Mahfud said Ma’ruf was behind a statement from Islamic mass organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) threatening to withdraw its support for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo if the incumbent picked Mahfud as his running mate.

“[NU executive] Robikin delivered the statement and Kiai Ma’ruf Amin was the one who ordered it,” he said.

Mahfud was considered a near certainty to be Jokowi’s running mate in the days leading up to the close of the presidential candidate registration, but Indonesian Ulema Council chairman and NU’s supreme leader Ma’ruf was given the nod instead.

Mahfud further implied that the PKB, the NU’s unofficial political arm, was one of the parties that had pressured Jokowi into making the switch.

Mahfud is closely affiliated with the NU, having been educated at an NU-run pesantren (Islamic boarding school) and for his long involvement in NU-related organizations such as GP Ansor, the NU’s youth wing, and the Wahid Institute.

However, in the weeks before the VP announcement, NU executives seemed to play down Mahfud’s involvement in the organization, and things came to a head with Robikin’s statement.

PKB executive Lukman Edy did not explicitly deny any of the details of Mahfud’s revelations but said Mahfud had not revealed all of the facts.

“I think that Pak Mahfud told only part of what he knows and left out some other parts,” he said on Wednesday. “There are also some things he does not know.”

He added that the NU conducted “high politics” and would not stoop so low as to participate in political horse-trading.

“The NU does not position itself as a political party, but its role is to oversee the political process so that it does not deviate from the NU’s morality,” he said.