Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian (left) giving an award to Bobby Nasution, mayor of Medan, North Sumatra, during a ceremony to commemorate regional autonomy in Surabaya town hall in East Java on April 25, 2024. - Antara
JAKARTA: The Golkar Party has officially nominated Medan Mayor Bobby Nasution, who is also President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo’s son-in-law, to contest the North Sumatra governor post in the upcoming regional head elections in November.
Speaking after a meeting with Bobby on Wednesday (June 19), Golkar chairman Airlangga Hartarto announced that his party officially supported Bobby's candidacy.
“It has been discussed that Pak Bobby will run for governor of North Sumatra and [his candidacy has] received support from several parties, including the Golkar Party," Airlangga said as quoted by Kompas.com.
"Golkar has certainly made a unanimous decision for North Sumatra [election], and it looks like almost all of the parties [backing president-elect Prabowo Subianto] will join," he continued.
Golkar’s support for Bobby came after Jokowi gathered all party leaders who supported the winning pair of the latest presidential election – Prabowo and Jokowi’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka – at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta in late May.
The party leaders admitted later on that the meeting discussed November's regional head elections.
Bobby was rumoured for a while to be planning to run for the position on Golkar’s ticket. But, the plan had drawn tough resistance from Golkar's North Sumatra office, which preferred to back its branch leader, Musa “Ijeck” Rajekshah, for the gubernatorial race.
Bobby then made a surprise announcement last month, saying he had joined Prabowo’s political vehicle, the Gerindra Party, and planned to run for the job on the party’s ticket.
Bobby was the first member of the First Family to officially shift allegiance to another party after parting ways with the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which had long backed the President and his family in various elections.
The PDI-P fired Bobby in November last year after he supported Prabowo-Gibran in the run-up to the February 2024 presidential election. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
