JAKARTA, Sept 3 (Jakarta Post/ANN): Projo, a supporter group for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, named him its favorite candidate for the 2024 presidential election in a conference held on Sunday in Bandung, West Java.
Having served two terms, Jokowi is constitutionally barred from running for a third time.
At the first People’s Conference (Musra) the organization initiated, almost a third of the 5,721 attendees voiced their support for Jokowi ahead of the election.
ProJo chairman Budi Arie Setiadi said the votes for Jokowi were a form of appreciation for the President. “People can have their own aspirations,” said Budi, whose organization has been campaigning for Jokowi since his first presidential run in 2014.
For his part, Jokowi in his opening speech at the conference reiterated that he will “always bow to the constitution and the people’s will”.
At the conference, 29.79 per cent of the attendees gave their support for Jokowi, while 16.92 percent voted for Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno and 16.10 per cent for Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo.
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto received 11.1 per cent of the votes and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan 9.02 per cent.
Waning influence Firman Noor, a senior political researcher at the National Research Agency (BRIN), did not consider that Jokowi supporter groups would have much of an influence in shaping the 2024 election.
“The best they could do is simply giving their opinions [...], which the political parties then might take into account,” Firman told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
With the parties still mostly undecided, he suggested that parties might consider these supporter groups as a reflection of what Jokowi wants, whose opinions are still of importance among the parties.
However, Firman had observed that Jokowi’s – and by extension, the supporter group’s – sphere of influence was going to wane as the President got closer to his final days.
As the 2024 election draws near, the parties are expected to become more insular, he said.
“The parties have their own egos to serve instead of a [supporter] group that isn’t actually closely affiliated with the political parties”, said Firman.
Previously, Musra head of committee Panel Barus said the group was planning to hold a conference in each of Indonesia’s 34 provinces until March 2023.
Barus described the series of conferences as a way for the people to be more involved in choosing the future leaders of Indonesia.
Earlier this year, Projo was vocal in supporting proposals looking to extend Jokowi's term past its constitutionally mandated date or to delay the 2024 general election.
The term extension talks ignited a series of student-led protests in April.
In July, the Jokowi National Secretariat (Seknas Jokowi), a volunteer group that has also backed the President since 2014, began drafting a campaign platform for the incumbent’s eventual choice of candidate to run in the 2024 general election, lining up suggestions for priority legislation to be pursued should the presidential hopeful succeed in forming a government.
Seknas Jokowi said it was devising programs to be included in the state-led 2025-2045 National Long Term Development Plan (RPJPN), with the primary goal of offering it up to Jokowi’s eventual nominees.
Jokowi has been telling his various support groups to wait for his signal to back a candidate of his choice in the next election. The Jakarta Post/ANN
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