Anies Baswedan, a former governor of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, has formally registered as a candidate for next year’s presidential election, as the battlelines for the February 14 poll begin to harden.
Anies, 54, registered with the country’s election commission on the opening day of the week-long registration period, along with his vice presidential running mate Muhaimin Iskandar, the chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB), Indonesia’s largest Islamic party.
Most recent polls have put Anies a clear third in the three-way race of who will succeed President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. The other two candidates are Ganjar Pranowo, the former governor of Central Java, who is representing the incumbent Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, a former commander of Indonesia’s special forces, who is representing his own Gerindra party.
A recent poll of potential candidates by Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI) showed Anies commanding the support of just 22 percent of respondents, well behind Prabowo (34 percent) and Ganjar (30.4 percent). In a two-way runoff, the pollster’s chief told reporters, Prabowo would win over Ganjar by about 11 points.
An earlier LSI poll, released in late August, showed Ganjar in pole position, commanding the support of 37 percent of respondents, 1.3 percent ahead of Prabowo. In this poll, too, Anies trailed behind the two frontrunners, with around the support of around a fifth of respondents.
As the October 25 deadline approaches, the three primary presidential tickets are coalescing after months of speculation about who would fill the various vice presidential slots, which often carry a significant degree of weight in Indonesian presidential elections. In early September, Anies announced his choice of Muhaimin, who has close ties to Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country’s largest Islamic organization. The choice can be interpreted as an attempt to bolster his moderate Islamic bona fides and to downplay his past associations with hardline elements of the country’s religio-political spectrum.
Then, yesterday, Ganjar announced Mahfud MD, the current coordinating minister for political, legal, and security affairs, as his vice-presidential running mate. Like Muhaimin, Mahfud, also has close links to NU, including to its youth wing GP Ansor. He has also served as a member of the People’s Representative Council and a Constitutional Court judge. (Ganjar and Mahfud were also reportedly scheduled to submit their registrations to the election commission today.)
Attention now turns to who Prabowo will choose as his running mate. Rumors have been swirling that he might join hands with Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Jokowi’s eldest son, who, like his father before him, is currently serving as the mayor of Surakarta. This possibility was underscored by this week’s Constitutional Court ruling, which stated the minimum age of 40 could run as president or vice-president if they had been elected at lower levels of government. (Gibran is currently 36 years of age.) Another widely mooted possibility is Erick Thohir, the current minister of state-owned enterprises.
Campaigning for the presidential election officially begins on November 28.