Update: Teman Ahok has updated their latest tally (as of Wednesday, March 16th) on Twitter, announcing that they have received close to 100,000 voter IDs since March 9th:
If you need any proof that many Jakartans want Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama to forego political party backing and run as an independent candidate in the 2017 gubernatorial elections, this is it.
Ten days after he announced that he would enter the race as an independent along with running mate Heru Budi Hartono, public support for Ahok seems to be on the rise.
Volunteer group Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok), which have been trying to collect enough Jakartan voter IDs to make Ahok eligible for an independent run, has had to start from scratch and start collecting IDs from people who support both Ahok and Heru in the upcoming elections in order to avoid any possible legal stumbling blocks in the future.
That means that the 780,000-plus voter IDs the group had already collected for just Ahok are now void. However, the group seems confident that they can still collect the 532,000 IDs (the minimum required by the General Elections Commission to make one eligible to run as an independent) in support of the Ahok-Heru pairing by the cut off date at the end of May.
While that appears to be a daunting task, it looks like the people of Jakarta have come through in a big way for Ahok and Teman Ahok.
Just 5 days into the re-opening of the registration for voter IDs, Teman Ahok has already collected a whopping 74,441 IDs (as of March 15th), which is way beyond anyone’s realistic expectations.
“It’s extraordinary. This number exceeds our target of 7,500 [IDs] per day. Maybe this is the answer from the people of Jakarta to Pak Ahok’s decision to run as an independent,” said Amalia Ayuningtyas, Teman Ahok spokeswoman, as quoted on their official website.
With progress like this, it’s not hard to imagine Teman Ahok collecting way more voter IDs than they need to. They may need it too, considering that it looks like the House of Representatives (DPR) is looking into ways to make it more difficult for independent candidates like Ahok to run for office.
