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Jokowi can campaign for regional head candidates, Bawaslu says
The agency, a Central Java KPU official and an election law expert all agree that the former president can be a campaign volunteer in November's regional head elections, though the latter says a note of caution is warranted because his son is the incumbent vice president.
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Former president Joko “Jokowi“ Widodo (left) and former first lady Iriana Widodo gesture to a waving crowd on Oct. 20, 2024, as they prepare to board the Indonesian Air Force’s VVIP plane at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base in East Jakarta to return to their hometown of Surakarta, Central Java. (Antara Foto/Muhammad Adimaja)
The Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) has announced that former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is free to campaign voluntarily for candidates in the upcoming regional head elections as an ordinary citizen after stepping down from office on Oct. 20.
“I believe that if the [presidential term] has been completed, the [election] restriction is no longer in place,” Bawaslu chairman Rahmat Bagja said on Tuesday at the agency’s Central Jakarta headquarters, as quoted by Kompas.com.
Rahmat added that Jokowi, as well as all former presidents, were allowed to campaign openly for the candidates of their choice, pointing to the involvement of the country’s fifth president Megawati Soekarnoputri and sixth president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in political campaigns.
“Pak [Mr.] SBY has campaigned before and Bu [Mrs.] Mega is also a political party chair. So the restriction is no longer valid,” he said, noting that the question of ethics was left to the public as regards Jokowi campaigning on behalf of a candidate in the simultaneous regional head elections.
“We [Bawaslu] don’t manage ethics. The public can decide whether it is ethical or not.”
On the day he stepped down from his decade-long presidency, Jokowi told the media he had been asked to campaign for several candidates contesting the regional head elections on Nov. 27.
These included Central Java gubernatorial candidate pair Ahmad Luthfi and Taj Yasin and Surakarta mayoral candidate pair Respati Ardi and Astrid Widayani, whom he received in what he described as informal, closed-door meetings at his private residence in Surakarta, Central Java.
