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2024 election: Who’s got the ticket to ride? But voters care
Get ready for another two-horse race come 2024, with the only difference being that one of the horses might be an entirely new name. Just don't bet on it.
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House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani (left) is pictured with Megawati Soekarnoputri (center), the chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), a former president and her mother, as well as Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto at the State Palace in this photo Puan posted to her Twitter account on Nov. 18, 2021. (Courtesy of/Puan Maharani via Twitter)
W
ith just two years to go until the general elections, the talk of the town is about who will succeed President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to lead the nation after 2024. Dinner and online conversations are aided by various opinion polls on which figures are the most popular.
The three names that consistently top the surveys of independent pollsters are Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan. The order of their popularity changes with time and in different surveys, but most conversations revolve around these three names.
Here’s the conversation spoiler: None of them might run in 2024. They are not assured of getting an electoral ticket from political parties, and given the strict electoral rules today, they may not even make it pass the nomination stage.
The only party that has the right to nominate a presidential candidate is the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), and the current sentiment is that the ticket would go to Puan Maharani, the House of Representatives Speaker and daughter of party matron Megawati Sukarnoputri, who was president in 2002-2004.
Puan’s popularity rating is low across all surveys, but if she decides to run, she is the only one who’ll have a ticket to contest the 2024 presidential election.
Prabowo and Anies will still have to work hard to get theirs. Ganjar, though recently rated most popular by many surveys, can almost forget about his chances. Coming from the PDI-P, the only way he’ll have a chance is by the grace of Puan and Megawati.
But Ganjar still has a remote chance of being the PDI-P’s presidential ticket if Puan comes to the realization that she cannot win the presidency because voters simply won’t go for her. Megawati wanted to run for reelection in 2014 but quit, as it became clear she would never win, and she also couldn’t bear the thought of losing for the third time. A few weeks before registration closed, she gave the PDI-P ticket to then-Jakarta governor Jokowi, who went on to win the presidential election in 2014 and 2019, helping the PDI-P along the way to win votes in the legislative election in both years.
