When former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama was sentenced to two years in prison at the conclusion of his controversial blasphemy trial in May, most believed that his political career had ended as well.
But there are clearly still a lot of people who would like to see Ahok in a national leadership role, including a significant percentage that thinks he should run with President Joko Widodo as his vice presidential candidate in the next election.
That’s according to the results of a new survey by Indikator Politik Indonesia. The poll gave respondents 16 candidates to choose from and asked which one is the most appropriate candidate to accompany Jokowi in the 2019 presidential election. Out of the 16, Ahok came out on top.
Indikator executive director Burhanuddin Muhtadi said there are still many people who want to see Jokowi and Ahok team up again (like when Ahok served as vice governor to Jokowi when he was the governor of Jakarta), despite Ahok’s blasphemy conviction.
“Ahok, although still in prison, remains number one,” Burhanuddin said at a press conference announcing the survey results yesterday as quoted by Tribun.
Although you could say it wasn’t exactly a landslide as Ahok was picked by 16% of respondents. In second place with 10% is Indonesian Military Commander Gatot Nurmantyo, who many observers believe has been making political moves to bolster his electability recently.
“Pak Gatot has maneuvered a lot to raise awareness, to be more well-known,” said Burhanuddin.
Coming up behind Ahok and Gatot in the survey were Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil (8%) Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati (7%), Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini (5%), Chief of Police Tito Karnavian (4%), former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Mahfud MD and Nasdem Party Chairman Surya Paloh (3 %).
Also on the list of candidates were Bank Indonesia Governor Agus Martowardojo, Head of State Intelligence Agency Budi Gunawan, Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Puan Maharani, and former Chairman of National Economic Committee Chairul Tanjung. Each of them was chosen by about 2% of respondents.
Coming up at the bottom were Chairman of the National Awakening Party Muhaimin Iskandar and Chairman of the National Mandate Party Zulkifli Hasan, who both got about 1%. United Development Party Chairman Romahurmuziy was not chosen by any of the respondents.
Burhanuddin also noted that a large percentage of respondents, 34%, said they were undecided.
The Indikator survey was held from September 17-24 and used multistage random sampling with 1,220 respondents across Indonesia. The margin of error is approximately 2.9% with a confidence level of 95%. Selected respondents were interviewed face-to-face by trained interviewers.
Is there any chance that Jokowi would actually pick Ahok as his vice presidential candidate? Probably not, as Jokowi and his administration carefully avoided any appearance of directly supporting Ahok during his blasphemy controversy and trial, presumably due to fears that it would destroy the president politically.
However, there is actually still a chance that Ahok could run or serve in office after his time in prison is over, since his sentence did not specifically strip him of his political rights (his lawyer indicated that this was one of the reasons he chose not to appeal the sentence, since an appeal could open him up to the possibility of more jail time as well as a prohibition from government service).
