Indonesia election 2024: will Gibran’s chances be hurt by poll body’s ethics scandal?

On Monday, the Election Organization Ethics Council (DKPP) found Hasyim Asy’ari, the chairman of the General Elections Commission (KPU), as well as six commissioners, to be guilty of breaching ethics for not amending the organisation’s internal regulation on the minimum age of candidates before accepting Gibran’s registration.

The first scandal surrounding the candidacy of Gibran, the 36-year-old mayor of Surakarta in Central Java, occurred on October 16, when the Constitutional Court ruled that those below the age requirement of 40 were still eligible to run in a presidential election if they had already been elected to a different office.

The court’s ethics board later found the ruling to be unethical because Anwar Usman, Widodo’s brother-in-law who was also the court’s chief justice at the time of the ruling, had failed to recuse himself. Anwar was later demoted from his position and is barred from ruling on any future election-related cases.

However, the court’s ruling was allowed to stand, opening a path for Gibran to register with the KPU as the vice presidential candidate on Prabowo’s ticket on October 25.

Instead of immediately seeking approval from lawmakers to revise the minimum age for candidates in its internal regulations to comply with the court’s ruling, the KPU only informed political parties about the changes, the DKPP said on Monday.

The lawmakers only approved the revised regulation on October 31, six days after Gibran’s registration.

For breaching KPU’s regulations, Hasyim was slapped with a “final stern warning” while the six commissioners were given a “stern warning”.

On Monday, Hasyim refused to comment on the ruling, only saying that “I have provided answers, evidence, and arguments” to the DKPP.

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