Indonesia presidential candidate Subianto picks Jokowi's son as running mate

JAKARTA - Prabowo Subianto, Gerindra Party's front runner for Indonesia's 2024 Presidential Election, announced on Sunday evening that President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi's) eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is his running mate for the presidential race.

"The Onward Indonesia Coalition has held a final discussion, and by consensus, all have agreed to nominate Prabowo Subianto as presidential candidate and Gibran Rakabuming Raka as vice presidential candidate," he said when making the announcement at his residence in Jakarta, reported ANTARA news agency.

Subianto said the decision was unanimous, and all member parties of the Onward Indonesia Coalition reached a consensus regarding the decision.

While announcing the name of his running mate, he was accompanied by several chairpersons of the coalition's member parties.

Those party chairs comprised, among others, Golkar Party's Chairperson Airlangga Hartarto, National Mandate Party's (PAN) Chairperson Zulkifli Hasan, Crescent Star Party's (PBB) Chairperson Yusril Ihza Mahendra, and Democratic Party's Chairperson Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono.

However, Raka, currently serving as Surakarta mayor, was not present when Subianto, who leads the Gerindra Party, announced his name as the coalition's vice presidential candidate.

On Saturday (Oct 21), the Golkar Party had proposed that Raka become the running mate of Prabowo Subianto in the 2024 presidential election.

The Subianto-Raka pair has yet to register themselves at the General Elections Commission (KPU) while the pairs of Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar, and Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD, had registered themselves on Thursday (Oct 19).

The registration of presidential and vice presidential candidate pairs is open from Oct 19 to Oct 25, 2023.

Indonesia's election law determines that a pair of presidential and vice presidential candidate is nominated by a political party or a coalition of political parties that has achieved a presidential threshold with at least 20 percent of the House of Representatives (DPR) seats or 25 percent of votes in the previous parliamentary election.

Hence, a presidential and vice presidential candidate pair must be supported by at least 115 members of the DPR -- out of 575 parliament members -- or by a political party or a party coalition that secured at least 34,992,703 votes in the 2019 General Elections - BERNAMA