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View all search resultsFlawed candidacy, untouchable office
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Constitutional Court Chief Justice Suhartoyo (center) reads out the court’s ruling on a petition challenging the eligibility requirements for Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s candidacy as vice president in the 2024 presidential election, alongside fellow Constitutional Court justices on Oct. 6 at the court’s building in Central Jakarta. (JP/Iqro Rinaldi)
Indonesia dodged a constitutional crisis on Tuesday, but only because the Constitutional Court looked the other way.
The Court rejected a citizens' petition to disqualify Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka for failing to produce a high school diploma when he registered with the General Elections Commission (KPU) as Prabowo Subianto's running mate. Having accepted the substance of the complaint in the hearing, it dismissed the case because the petitioners – law experts, activists and former military officers – were not participants in the 2024 election and so lacked standing.
The Court has effectively said the vice president did not meet an administrative requirement to stand, but that nobody entitled to complain can do anything about it. The paperwork was deficient, the candidacy went ahead, the election was won, the oath was taken, and the matter is closed.
There is a defensible logic to the outcome.
Annulling Gibran's candidacy, or declaring his vice presidency void, would have thrown Indonesia into a constitutional crisis with no clear script.
The Constitution offers no tidy way to unwind a sitting vice president's election two years on; removal runs through the legislature and the People's Consultative Assembly, not a citizens' petition.
Months of turmoil, a split governing coalition and jittery markets would have followed. The Court chose stability, and that counts for something.
