Medan Mayor Bobby Nasution shows his inked finger after casting his vote for the 2024 general election on Feb 14, 2024, in Medan, North Sumatra. - Antara
JAKARTA: President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo’s son-in-law and Medan Mayor Bobby Nasution looks likely to face resistance in his bid to run for governor of North Sumatra later this year, following a mix-up with a local Golkar Party politician.
Bobby has been closely watched after the Widodo clan staged a political coup in the 2024 general election by siding with the rivals of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the family’s former political sponsor.
He had been tapped to be among the leading candidates to run for governor on the ticket of the Golkar Party, with which he has been closely linked after splitting with the PDI-P last year.
Bobby recently attended a Golkar gathering for prospective electoral candidates and told reporters soon thereafter that he had set his sights on the North Sumatra governorship and had secured his father-in-law’s blessing to run, Kompas.com reported.
However, his statements apparently ruffled feathers at Golkar’s North Sumatra office, which already had someone else in mind for the job.
Branch secretary Datok Ilhamsyah said on Monday that Golkar’s members in the province, particularly at the grassroots level, would prefer to field branch head Musa “Ijeck” Rajekshah for governor in the upcoming race.
Ijeck served as deputy governor of North Sumatra from 2018 to 2023.
“The party chair [Airlangga Hartarto] didn’t specifically tell [Bobby] to run here. We can guarantee you that hasn’t happened. He attended as a candidate for Medan mayor,” Datok told reporters in the North Sumatra capital.
Bobby was first in line for reelection in Medan, but remained behind Ijeck in the pecking order for the gubernatorial election, a decision Datok said was a direct order from the party’s central executive board.
Bobby said he would offer a personal apology to Ijeck and the North Sumatra branch for overstepping boundaries.
“I intend to meet with Musa Rajekshah and apologize to him directly,” he said last week. Golkar executive Meutya Hafid, however, insisted that the authority to decide which candidates would be nominated for regional elections lay solely with the central board.
“The decision will be made here and not [at the local level],” she said on Thursday, as quoted by Tempo.co.
While the jury is still out on whether Bobby will get the green light from Golkar to run for governor, the mayor has received support from the National Mandate Party (PAN), a fellow member of the broad political alliance that helped Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto win the 2024 presidential election.
“PAN plans to nominate Bobby for the North Sumatra regional elections. This will be the second time that PAN has supported Bobby, the first time being when he ran for Medan mayor,” PAN deputy chairman Viva Yoga Mauladi said on Saturday, as quoted by Tribunnews.com.
Prabowo himself has hinted at support for Bobby’s gubernatorial bid, saying that he was not too young to run should the people of North Sumatra want him to.
Prabowo won the Feb 14 race on the promise of continuity and with the implicit backing of President Jokowi, who remains popular and has been making efforts to ensure lasting political influence for himself and his family.
Controversially, Jokowi’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka was named Prabowo’s running mate after the Constitutional Court altered the candidate age minimum so that 36-year-old Gibran could run, a decision whose circumstances were later ruled unethical by the court’s oversight body.
With the election dispute period coming to a close and the top court looking unlikely to order a revote, the focus has shifted to the Nov 27 regional elections, which will be the first time Indonesian voters simultaneously elect leaders across all levels of regional administration. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
