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Sole independent ticket did not qualify for Jakarta governor race, says KPU
The November gubernatorial election in Jakarta will once again be a battle of political party-backed candidates after the poll agency declared the sole independent ticket – retired police general Dharma Pongrekun and running mate academician Kun Wardana – ineligible to run.
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People gather in the park of the National Monument (Monas) in Jakarta on Aug. 6, 2023. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
The November gubernatorial election in Jakarta will once again be a battle of political party-backed candidates after the General Elections Commission (KPU) declared that the sole independent ticket – retired police general Dharma Pongrekun and running mate academic Kun Wardana – had failed to gain enough support to enter the race.
Prevailing regulations require would-be independent candidates in Jakarta to collect more than 600,000 signatures, or 7.5 percent of the city’s 8.2 million registered voters.
Dharma and Kun registered their candidacies with the poll agency last month, having collected 1.2 million signatures.
But the KPU Jakarta office confirmed this week that only around 450,000 signatures were valid, after checking the identities of the voters who gave their signatures with its database.
“The pair did not meet the minimum threshold of support to run independently, so they were eliminated from the race,” KPU Jakarta commissioner Dody Wijaya said on Tuesday, as quoted by Kompas.id.
Dharma and Kun said they would appeal to the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), adding that they would continue “to fight for their candidacies” for the sake of their supporters.
The last time Jakarta voters had independent candidates to choose from was in 2012, when two independent pairs competed against four political party-backed pairs, including the eventual winner Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, currently the incumbent President who will leave office in October, and his running mate Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama.
