While not yet committing himself, Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has signaled that he is likely to run as an independent candidate in the 2017 Jakarta Gubernatorial Election, a move made possible after a volunteer group that call itself Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok) collected more than enough Jakartan voter IDs to support Ahok’s bid for the Jakarta top job.
At the same time, several political parties, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), have been rumored to be considering supporting Ahok’s bid for re-election. In fact, one party, the National Democrats (Nasdem), have actually officially and unilaterally endorsed Ahok.
So the question has been, can Ahok enter the governor’s race both as an independent and with political party support?
According to the General Elections Commission (KPU), such a thing is technically possible in accordance to the law, but there would be some things Ahok wouldn’t be able to count on political parties for.
“Formally, the name or symbols of any political party can’t be included in registration documents and campaign materials,” said KPU Commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay, as quoted by Okezone yesterday.
Hadar then clarified that independent candidates like Ahok are still allowed to receive campaign funding from political parties.
That could certainly help Ahok’s campaign from a pragmatic point of view, but we hope that Ahok won’t receive any political party funding should it mean he would have to answer to the party leaders and not be truly independent if he were to get re-elected.
