Ahok’s contract with the PDI-P comes after the ruling party officially declared its support for Ahok and Djarot Saiful Hidayat in the upcoming Jakarta gubernatorial election.

PDI-P deputy secretary-general Ahmad Basarah said the political contract should not be thought of as a “political dowry”. The contract is needed to establish political cooperation between the PDI-P and the appointed candidates, he said.

"In the contract, there is an attachment that contains the party's ideology, or Dasa Prasetya. The contract is needed to develop and serve Jakartans. It isn’t related to political dowries," he said on Tuesday evening in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristianto said the party board did not object to Ahok’s independent style as the party had Djarot, a PDI-P member, running alongside him in the election. "Governors can't work without deputy governors, and vice versa," he said.

He added that the party decided to support Ahok at the “last minute”, or a day before the opening of candidate registration by Jakarta General Elections Commission, because it wanted to show its support for all its candidates competing in all elections throughout the country.

"There are 101 regional elections in 2017. Therefore, we declared our support for Ahok at the last minute because we wanted to reveal the candidate names all at once," he said. (ags)

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