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President Jokowi says Mahfud free to leave the cabinet
"It's his right [to resign] and I appreciate it," Jokowi said on the sideline of an event at the Halim Perdanakusumah Military Base in Jakarta on Wednesday.
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Presidential candidate and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo (left) and vice presidential candidate Mahfud MD attend the last vice presidential election debate at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) in Jakarta on Jan. 21, 2024. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
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esponding to a statement from the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD that he would soon tender his resignation, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said he would accept the decision and that the senior minister was free to leave the cabinet.
"It's his right [to resign] and I appreciate it," Jokowi said on the sideline of an event at the Halim Perdanakusumah Military Base in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Jokowi was responding to a statement from Mahfud made on Tuesday night during a campaign event in Semarang, Central Java, that he had long intended to resign from the cabinet.
Mahfud said he was ready to resign from the moment he joined the first vice presidential debate in December last year and was waiting for the right moment to tender his resignation to the President.
The senior minister said that by resigning from the cabinet he would gain more freedom to campaign for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo.
He also said that by leaving the cabinet he could share more data on the government’s performance without legal and bureaucratic constraints.
In the last vice presidential debate, which pitted Mahfud against Jokowi's eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the two were engaged in a tense back-and-forth which culminated in Mahfud refusing to answer a gotcha question from the 36-year-old.
