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Political dynasty gestates as Jokowi’s ‘sons’ lead regional polls
Provisional counts show two relatives of the President in the lead in their respective regional elections.
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Gibran Rakabuming Raka (center), the eldest son of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, speaks to his followers to garner support for his bid to run in the Surakarta mayoral election on the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) ticket, at the party’s Central Java office in Semarang. Gibran’s father won the same mayorship in 2002. (JP/Suherdjoko)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo could be the first Indonesian leader to have two “sons” as mayors, as the 2020 simultaneous regional elections look likely to pave the way for a nascent political clan.
Two pollsters, Charta Politica and VoxPol Center, found on Thursday that Jokowi’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka and his running mate Teguh Prakosa were leading the race for mayor and deputy mayor of Surakarta, Central Java, with over 86 percent of the sampled votes.
The provisional results were similar to those of the General Elections Commission’s (KPU) real-time vote database, Sirekap, which had compiled 54 percent of the votes in the city, suggesting that Gibran was likely to beat his opponent Bagyo Wahono in the contest.
Gibran is backed by a broad coalition of parties, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which catapulted his father to the presidency. Bagyo, on the other hand, ran on an independent ticket.
Hundreds of kilometers to the west, Jokowi’s son-in-law Bobby Nasution is looking to win the Medan mayoral race in North Sumatra.
Provisional counts by Charta Politika, Voxpol Center and the Poltracking Institute have shown that Bobby and his running mate Aulia Rahman have gained over 52 percent of the sampled votes. The results are also similar to the KPU’s Sirekap, which had compiled 35 percent of Medan’s votes as of Thursday afternoon.
In response to the quick count, Gibran said he was more focused on health and safety than on winning the election, while Bobby said he preferred to wait for the official results from the KPU.
