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Gibran should take high road, by way of Surabaya
With such a strong PDI-P foundation in Surabaya, Gibran would enter the race with substantial leverage. His presence in the election would guarantee continued national exposure on the debate over the city’s future.
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Like father like son: Gibran Rakabuming Raka (center), the eldest son of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, speaks to his followers as he seeks support for his bid to run in the Surakarta mayoral election on the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) ticket at the party’s Central Java office in Semarang. Gibran is trying to emulate his father, who won the Surakarta mayoral post in 2002. (JP/Suherdjoko)
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mong the more than 200 local elections to be held in September, one that has attracted national curiosity is the mayoral election in Surakarta, also known as Solo, in Central Java.
This midsized town of some 500,000 people and one of the cultural centers of Javanese heritage is central to Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s political rise to the highest office in the country.
The then-furniture businessman became the first directly elected mayor of the city in 2005 and after seven years of leading it, won Jakarta’s gubernatorial election, before being elected president in 2014.
This time around, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Jokowi’s eldest son, is following in his father’s footsteps by running for mayor. As a political novice, he will face institutional and electoral hurdles. While he could gain support from the central board of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Gibran’s presence would disrupt the local chapter’s context.
Electorally, while Jokowi remained popular in Surakarta in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections — by winning more than 80 percent of the vote, his 32-year old son would have to campaign feverishly to convince voters that he would elevate the city as he did in the last 15 years.
Nonetheless, in Surakarta, Gibran would have ridden an established political canoe toward a public office.
A higher road to strike would be to take on a more formidable challenge in running as the mayor of the second-largest city in the country, Surabaya, to succeed the internationally acclaimed Tri Rismaharini, or Bu Risma.
