Tuesday night’s announcement that PDI-P would be supporting Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in his reelection bid next year ended months of speculation over who the ruling party would pick as their choice to run the capital.
Much of that speculation was that PDI-P might choose Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini to challenge Ahok, a matchup that early polls showed Ahok still would have likely won. But Bu Risma (as she is popularly known) is a beloved and experienced political leader who often came closest to Ahok in polls of Jakarta voters.
However, now that Bu Risma is definitely sticking to her promise of staying in Surabaya, it is likely that businessman Sandiaga Uno, who has earned the Gerindra party’s backing, will be Ahok’s only serious rival in 2017. Many analysts believe that Sandiaga, who has never held political office before, is unlikely to pose much of a threat to the time-tested incumbent.
In fact, one senior political analyst, Ray Rangkuti, the executive director of political think tank Lingkar Madani Indonesia (Indonesia Civil Circle) thinks that PDI-P’s support of Ahok, along with his current vice governor, Djarot Saiful Hidayat, means the results of next year’s gubernatorial election are already a sure thing.
“After PDI-P backing Ahok-Djarot, we can say that at a certain level, the Jakarta election is already over,” Ray said yesterday as quoted by Kompas.
Ray said that he didn’t think there was any way that Sandiaga would be able to match Ahok’s electability. As this perception was widespread, it is likely that rival political parties would be unwilling to devote a great deal of resources to fighting a losing battle and the election would ultimately prove to be anticlimactic.
Indeed, a poll from earlier this month by the Indonesian Public Opinion Discussion and Study Group showed that 41.6% of those surveyed would vote for Ahok in the election, compared to just 7% for Sandiaga.
Which begs the question – if next year’s election proves to be totally anticlimactic, what are political pundits going to talk about until then? We say – let the wild speculation about a possible Ahok run for the presidency commence!
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