The Golkar political party today announced that they would officially be supporting Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s bid for re-election in 2017.
The party’s central executive board (DPP) handed an official letter pledging their support to Ahok in a ceremony event in Golkar’s Jakarta chapter office.
Ahok, who was once a member of Golkar, said he appreciates the party’s support and promised not to let them down.
“I am ready to perform my duties and I will try my best not to disappoint Golkar’s hopes,” Ahok said, as quoted by Kompas.
What Golkar’s “hopes” entail are still pretty vague at this point. Golkar previously said they would support Ahok even if he decided to run as an independent candidate, but this official endorsement paves the way for Ahok to run in 2017 with political party backing. With Golkar’s support, on top of the support previously pledged by Hanura and NasDem, Ahok can now count on 24 seats in the Jakarta City Council, which is enough for him to make his candidacy official.
But such a scenario is unlikely to please many of Ahok’s supporters, particularly volunteer group Teman Ahok, which has collected 1 million Jakartan KTP ID cards in support of Ahok’s independent run. That said, even Teman Ahok seems to be more and more open to the idea of Ahok running on a political party base after the House of Representatives (DPR) passed a new Regional Election Bill (RUU Pilkada) that will make it much more difficult for Teman Ahok to verify the nearly 1 million ID cards they have collected in support of the governor’s independent run.
Reader Interactions