JAKARTA: Indonesian Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka is facing fresh questions over his education credentials, with a group of petitioners asking the Constitutional Court to rule that he should not have been allowed to contest the 2024 presidential election.
The case centres on whether Gibran, 38, had completed the equivalent of senior high school, a requirement for presidential and vice-presidential candidates in Indonesia.
Former deputy law minister Denny Indrayana and 11 other petitioners argued that he did not meet the requirement, and want the court to invalidate his candidacy and subsequent inauguration as vice-president.
Indrayana, who served as deputy law and human rights minister from 2011 to 2014 under then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told the court on Sept 21 that information surrounding Gibran’s education had been “withheld and not provided, even until now”.
At the centre of the dispute is Gibran’s education overseas, which included time in Singapore and Australia.
Indonesia’s General Elections Commission (KPU) records show that he studied at Orchid Park Secondary School in Singapore from 2002 to 2004, before continuing his education at University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) affiliated college Insearch.
In 2019, Indonesia’s Education Ministry issued a certificate stating that Gibran had completed Grade 12 at UTS Insearch in 2006 and was assessed as having knowledge equivalent to that of an Indonesian vocational high-school graduate.
The petitioners questioned what documents were used to make that assessment, and whether Gibran’s studies were enough to meet the minimum education requirement to run for vice-president.
Details of the dispute
Gibran is the eldest son of former president Joko Widodo, who backed his former rival Prabowo Subianto in the 2024 election, with his son joining Prabowo’s ticket as running mate.
Prabowo and Gibran won the Feb 14 election with 58.6 per cent of the vote, or more than 96.2 million votes, and were inaugurated on Oct 20 that year.
At the Sept 21 hearing, Judge Saldi Isra asked the KPU for records explaining a 2023 rule change that exempted some candidates educated overseas from submitting proof that they had graduated from high school.
The petitioners are questioning whether the rule was properly applied to Gibran. Saldi also asked election watchdog Bawaslu to explain how it had checked that Gibran met the education requirement.
The petitioners’ case has yet to be tested in court, and KPU commissioner Idham Holik said the commission would submit documents at the next hearing showing the basis for its finding that Gibran was eligible to run.
One of the petitioners, Bonatua Silalahi, had earlier sought access to records related to the 2019 certificate.
Indonesia’s Central Information Commission ruled on March 11 that the certificate and supporting records were public information that should be disclosed. Silalahi received the certificate from the Education Ministry on April 16, but the petitioners said they have not obtained all the documents used as the basis for the assessment.
They argued that if Gibran did not meet the education requirement, the KPU should not have approved his candidacy.
The petitioners want the court to cancel his inauguration and have the vice-presidency filled through a constitutional process under which Prabowo would nominate two candidates and the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) would choose between them.
Complications over petition’s timing
There is also the issue of timing. Presidential election disputes generally have to be filed within three days of the KPU announcing the result.
The petitioners acknowledged they were well past the deadline, but said the information behind their challenge only emerged later.
“In this case, the information and knowledge that Gibran did not meet the education requirement only became known later,” Indrayana said, according to a report by IDN Times.
Their lawyer Bambang Widjojanto told the court that “the petitioners are only asking for a fair opportunity” to have the question of Gibran’s education tested in an open and impartial evidentiary hearing.
The court has yet to rule on whether it can hear the late challenge or on the substance of the petitioners’ case.
Questions over Gibran’s overseas education have surfaced before, with critics previously questioning the legitimacy of his university degree from Singapore.
The Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) has since confirmed that he was a full-time student there from 2007 to 2010, completing an Advanced Diploma and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Marketing awarded by Britain’s University of Bradford.
The latest case concerns his education before entering MDIS, and whether it was enough to meet the high-school requirement to run for vice-president.
The next hearing is scheduled for Sept 23, when the KPU and Bawaslu are expected to respond. - The Straits Times/ANN
