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Jokowi’s die-hard supporters keep seeking ways to keep him in office beyond 2024
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A printing company employee checks the color quality of ballot papers for the 2019 presidential election in Jakarta in this undated photo. (The Jakarta Post/Dhoni Setiawan )
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has less than two years before he steps down but his die-hard supporters have been tinkering with ways to keep him in power beyond 2024.
A group calling itself the Prabowo-Jokowi joint secretariat filed a petition last week with the Constitutional Court to review the General Elections Law to pave the way for Jokowi to run for the country’s second-highest post.
Jokowi will end his second five-year term in October 2024 and is barred under the Constitution from seeking a third term. The Constitution, however, has no stipulation on whether an incumbent president can run for a term as vice president.
The group is challenging Article 169 of the General Elections Law that stipulates presidential and vice presidential candidates must not have “served as president or vice president for two terms in the same office”. The petitioners say they need legal certainty on whether a president who has served two terms can run for vice president.
The petition came after the Constitutional Court spokesman made a remark earlier this month that a president, who has served for two terms, may run for vice president, prompting discussion among political elites about the possibility. The Court then issued a clarification days after stressing that the spokesman’s remark was “not an official statement” and did not represent the court.
Some senior politicians from the pro-government coalition have said that Jokowi might run for vice president after his term expires in 2024 if he gets nominated by political parties.
Bambang Wuryanto of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), however, said that the decision to nominate Jokowi as vice president would rest in the hands of party chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri.
