The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsGibran wiped from the 2029 contest without a crisis
The court saga surrounding Gibran's credentials has essentially spelled the end of the Widodo political dynasty, not by killing it outright but by ensuring that it fades away.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka looks toward the central dais on May 20, 2026, prior to President Prabowo Subianto's speech on the macroeconomic framework to lawmakers at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta. (AFP/ Bay Ismoyo)
T
he Constitutional Court justices, and in this case President Prabowo Subianto also, may not kill Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka and Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s political dynasty instantly, but they made sure it withers away, wiping Gibran off the map in the 2029 contest.
To understand the irony of the court’s recent ruling on Gibran’s high school equivalency credentials, one must remember that the court was the very institution that birthed Gibran’s vice presidential candidacy in the first place.
In October 2023 under former chief justice Anwar Usman, none other than Jokowi’s brother-in-law, the court handed down the notorious ruling altering the age of candidacy specifically to carve out an exception for Gibran, then 36 and mayor of Surakarta, Central Java. That decision shattered the court's public standing, casting it as a political instrument for dynastic expansion.
In the recent hearing, the bench appeared poised to deliver a dramatic institutional redemption. Throughout the proceedings, the justices showed an aggressive, almost eager posture to corner Gibran’s legal team, grilling witnesses from the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the education ministry.
Yet when the verdict was delivered, the court executed a sharp, jarring turn. While the justices placed on the judicial record that Gibran possessed no valid high school diploma equivalent, stating that a foreign "certificate of attendance" did not constitute graduation, they abruptly dismissed the petition on procedural grounds of legal standing and time limits.
This shift bears the distinct mark of late-stage presidential management. An immediate, abrupt removal of a sitting vice president under Article 8 of the 1945 Constitution would have triggered systemic shock waves, street-level instability and an unpredictable power struggle inside the House of Representatives. To avoid endangering his own young presidency, Prabowo could have stepped in to ensure a "soft landing".
The Constitutional Court’s posture toward the current administration made this compromise seamless. This court has proven remarkably friendly and supportive of the Prabowo government’s core legislative agenda, most notably in its ruling on the flagship free nutritious meal program, where it upheld the program’s constitutionality while giving the executive total structural leeway to implement it.
