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PDI-P aims to crush PKS long reign in Depok mayoral race
After 15 years of reigning supreme in Depok, West Java, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) may have to face the battle alone in the upcoming regional elections as other parties aim to forge a coalition to challenge the Islam-based party and grab the top political spot in the sprawling satellite city
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fter 15 years of reigning supreme in Depok, West Java, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) may have to face the battle alone in the upcoming regional elections as other parties aim to forge a coalition to challenge the Islam-based party and grab the top political spot in the sprawling satellite city.
The PKS has announced its possible candidates in the race, with its very own officials Hafid Nasir, Imam Budi Hartoyono and T. Farida Rachmayanti in the running.
Hafid is the head of the PKS Depok executive board and serves as a councillor at the Depok City Council. Farida also serves as a councillor for the PKS faction in the council, while Imam currently serves as a councillor in the West Java Legislative Council, representing Depok and the Bekasi electoral district.
The three names came out following an internal selection process involving five candidates, Hafid said.
He said that although the party had yet to decide on a deputy, the current three hopefuls would be a reference for further deliberations.
“We are currently following the guidance of the party, which is still processing [the candidates],” Hafid told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
The party could form a coalition with other parties by pairing a non-party deputy candidate with the PKS’ own candidate. Still, it would have to first conduct an internal survey and hear out the opinions of Depok residents.
Excluded from the list of candidates was incumbent mayor Mohammad Idris.
Hafid said it was based on the party’s decision without elaborating further.
The PKS has won the past three Depok elections. In the latest one in 2015, it teamed up with former ally the Gerindra Party. From 2006 to 2016, PKS politician Nur Mahmudi Ismail served as Depok mayor for two terms before current mayor, Idris, whose term ends in 2021, took the helm.
The PKS is eligible to propose its own candidate without forming a coalition with other parties as it has the most seats at the City Council with 12. The number of seats needed for a party to endorse its own candidate is 10, or 20 percent of the 50 seats in the council, according to the 2016 law on regional elections.
Depok is one of 270 regions that will take part in the simultaneous 2020 regional elections in September.
Meanwhile, Gerindra has also made a move, proposing its politician and the current deputy mayor, Pradi Supriatna, as a candidate for mayor.
Gerindra’s Depok executive board secretary-general Hamzah said Pradi was among the initial candidates within the party to register for candidacy by himself.
Despite teaming up with the PKS in the 2015 regional elections, the party appears set to back its own member in the mayoral election.
“We have already made a decision to propose someone from within our party for the 2020 mayoral election,” Hamzah told the Post.
Mirroring the party’s decision to join the pro-government coalition at the national level, Gerindra, whose chairman Prabowo Subianto now serves as defense minister in President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s Cabinet, forged allies with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) for the Depok election.
The decision was made in a meeting between the two parties on Friday evening.
The coalition’s spokesman for the PDI-P, Ikravany Hilman, said although the two sides had agreed, they would still need to wait for an official letter from their central executive boards to move forward.
“We have declared our commitment to form a coalition. We have a similar ideology and we also agreed to sort out issues and develop Depok together,” he said on Friday as reported by tribunnews.com.
The meeting concluded that the coalition would endorse a mayoral candidate from Gerindra while the deputy mayor post would come from the PDI-P.
The parties each have 10 seats in the council.
Before the coalition was formed, the two parties also had talks with other parties, namely the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Golkar Party and the United Development Party (PPP).
The coalition announced Pradi as their candidate after meeting in early December 2019.
An independent candidate is still eligible to join the race if they amass 85,107 endorsements or 6.5 percent of Depok’s 1,309,338 eligible voters across at least six of the 11 districts, according to the Depok General Elections
Commission.
Mayoral hopefuls can submit documents on their candidacy including endorsements from voters from Feb. 19 to 23. Formal registration lasts from June 16 to 18, with the General Elections Commission to announce the eligible candidates for the race on July 8.
Voting will be on Sept. 23 and the elected mayor and deputy mayor will be inaugurated for the 2021-2026 term next year.
Besides being known as one of Jakarta’s growing satellite cities, Depok is also infamous for its patchwork development, severe traffic congestion and controversial policies. The administration had mulled introducing a regional bylaw to ban lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups and it also prepared a draft religious city bylaw as the PKS aimed to appease residents with conservative policies.
