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SBY calls out Jokowi for meddling in hunt for successor
Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono talked candidly about his stance regarding Jokowi’s admission of intervening in the selection of a preferred successor in a publication released on Monday to the Democratic Party’s inner circle.
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NasDem Party presidential candidate Anies Baswedan (left) greets former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (right) before a meeting on June 1, 2023. (The Jakarta Post/Twitter/Herzaky Mahendra Putra)
Former president and founder of the Democratic Party, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has taken a swipe at President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his allies and condemned legal threats by political leaders to block an opposition figure from running in the 2024 elections as abuses of power.
The 73-year-old talked candidly about his stance regarding Jokowi’s admission of intervening in the selection of a preferred successor in a publication titled The President Can Do No Wrong, 2024 Presidential Election & President Jokowi's ‘Cawe-Cawe’, released on Monday to the party’s inner circle.
Having hosted private meetings with political party leaders and appearing to hint at his support for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) presidential nominee Ganjar Pranowo, and then doing the same for Gerindra Party nominee Prabowo Subianto, Jokowi was criticized for maneuvers that his detractors have described as cawe-cawe, a Javanese term for meddling.
In the 24-page pamphlet, copies of which have circulated among journalists, Yudhoyono made clear that he did not take issue with Jokowi’s cawe-cawe in the hunt for his successor, including a recent move to influence the ruling coalition to back his preferred choice in next year’s race.
So long as Jokowi does not use any state resources to help influence the presidential race, he said, the President was free to have a preference for who should continue his legacy and give them his endorsement.
It was also not legally wrong, he noted, for the incumbent leader to engage in political maneuvering and work with parties to build a consensus on preventing any challenger of whom he disapproves from running, as he has done with opposition figurehead Anies Baswedan.
“What could make Pak Jokowi’s cawe-cawe a problem is if he and his aides make moves that violate the law and/or equate to an abuse of power in order to prevent a third candidate pairing from running,” Yudhoyono wrote.
