The candidate registration period for regional elections in Indonesia closed on August 29, capping off a tumultuous week in which the government of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and its allies veered dangerously close to sparking a constitutional crisis. The tumult began on August 20, when Indonesia’s constitutional court issued rulings that loosened the threshold for political parties to nominate candidates for regional elections—previously set at 20 percent of legislative seats in relevant regional councils or 25 percent of the popular vote—while also upholding the 30-year-old age requirement for candidates for regional office. But almost immediately, Indonesia’s House of Representatives launched efforts to revise regional election laws to override the court’s rulings, sowing the seeds of political turmoil.
The tussle between the court and legislature centered on two problems in the run up to regional elections on November 27. First was growing consternation over the fact that the 20 percent threshold combined with the consolidation of incoming president Prabowo Subianto’s Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM) meant that many elections would be functionally uncontested. And second was public frustration at Jokowi’s efforts to facilitate a run for office by Kaesang Pangarep, his 29-year-old son and a political neophyte who rose to the chairmanship of the youth-oriented Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) in September 2023 only two days after formally joining the party. Kaesang’s prospective rise to office would mirror that of his brother and incoming vice president Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who himself was the beneficiary of a controversial court ruling that loosened age restrictions for candidates for the country’s top offices.
The House’s efforts to overturn the constitutional court rulings immediately sparked public backlash. Protestors nationwide rallied in favor of preserving the rulings, with some in Jakarta even breaking down the gates of the House complex. And online, social media platforms were awash in a sea of blue images proclaiming an “emergency warning,” as Indonesian netizens decried what they perceived to be the president’s overreach in hamstringing political opponents and building his family’s political dynasty. After multiple alleged cases of police brutality—targeted toward both protestors and journalists—the House relented and agreed to implement the court’s rulings.
Despite the upholding of the constitutional court’s rulings, political intrigue still runs rife. The loosening of the thresholds for parties to nominate candidates was expected to clear the way for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) to tap Anies Baswedan, who lost to Prabowo in the presidential race, to run for Jakarta governor. Anies previously held that post from 2017 to 2022 and would presumably have been a frontrunner. But PDI-P made an eleventh hour decision to forgo an alliance with the independent politician and instead run one of its own cadres. Anies’s inability to run in the Jakarta election does not spell the end for his political career—he is relatively young and modestly popular, and could remain a figure around which opposition voices can coalesce by virtue of his status as a political independent.
Jakarta’s gubernatorial election will now see Ridwan Kamil, the former governor of West Java who is running as the candidate of the KIM coalition, face off against PDI-P’s Pramono Anung, who currently serves as cabinet secretary. While Ridwan has a firm record of urban management by virtue of his prior service as mayor of Bandung, Pramono is a relatively untested political quantity despite his senior role in PDI-P and has not featured in most pre-election opinion surveys. The question now will be whether either candidate can court Anies’s would-be supporters, whom pre-election polls suggest could make up a slim plurality of potential voters.
Elsewhere, the constitutional court’s ruling has opened the floodgates for PDI-P to nominate candidates for now-contestable elections. Notable candidates include Andika Perkasa, former commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces, who will vie for the East Java governorship. Meanwhile, Jokowi’s younger son Kaesang Pangarep has removed himself from the running altogether, not only because of the upholding of age restrictions, but also because of a looming controversy related to his use of a private jet and other lavish expenses during a recent trip to the United States.
Still unclear is how recent events will impact the political fortunes of incoming president Prabowo. Although the House’s proposed revisions would have directly benefitted his KIM coalition—members of which had endorsed rolling back the court’s ruling—the president-elect on August 24 distanced himself from those efforts and publicly denounced politicians who “have an endless thirst for power.” Prabowo’s change in tone reflects the delicate balance in Indonesia’s elite politics, and the fact that Jokowi’s very public dynasty-building project could become a political liability for the incoming president. After all, as acrimony between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Vice President Sara Duterte in the neighboring Philippines shows, an alliance of electoral convenience does not guarantee smooth sailing once in office, particularly if the Jokowi clan’s political ambitions come into conflict with the president-elect’s own agenda.
Andreyka Natalegawa is an associate fellow for the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
