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Parties await ruling on presidential age limit
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An officer from the General Elections Commission (KPU) introduces five different ballots at the KPU building in Central Jakarta in 2018. (The Jakarta Post/Dhoni Setiawan)
A forthcoming Constitutional Court ruling on the age limit of presidential and vice presidential candidates could be a game changer in the upcoming presidential race, after several parties floated the suggestion to back Surakarta Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the eldest son of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, as a potential vice presidential candidate.
The court will soon decide whether to lower the age limit of presidential and vice presidential candidates from 40 to 35 years old in the Election Law, raising the possibility of a reconfiguration of the current electoral alliances.
The court is currently reviewing three petitions seeking to change the current 40-year-old minimum age limit of presidential and vice presidential candidates. The move, if granted, will broaden the field of the presidential race, with younger candidates having their chance to join the race should they get the political backing.
The three petitions, the hearings of which started two months ago, were lodged by the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), the Garuda Party and Bukittinggi Mayor Erman Safar together with South Lampung Pandu Deputy Regent Kesuma Dewangsa.
The petition filed by the PSI sought to change the minimum age requirement for presidential and vice presidential candidates to 35 years, while another filed by the Garuda Party maintained the minimum age requirement of 40 years while adding the requirement of being “experienced as a regional head/deputy regional head.”
Whether or not the ruling will be issued before the registration for candidate pairs opens in October depends on the nine-member bench and how fast plaintiffs, or anyone filing a third-party application, should there be any, present their arguments and expert witnesses in court. The court has no deadline for deciding a judicial review case, but the average time it has taken to handle recent cases has been around 2.5 months.
Paving way for Gibran
