TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - In the run-up to next year's gubernatorial election, which will determine the political future of Basuki-better known as Ahok-the Jakarta governor will need to make a decision: to run as an independent with the support of one million voters, as constitutionally required, or to run as the nominee of a political party. Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), has opened the door for Ahok to join her party. The governor also had meetings with Setya Novanto, the newly elected Golkar party chairman.
Two years after leaving Gerindra-the party that nominated him to compete as Joko Widodo's running mate in the 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial election-Ahok no longer regards himself as a 'party subordinate'. His decision to leave the party won him widespread praise.
People who are unhappy with political parties see hope in Ahok, especially as he not only left the parties behind, but also opposed the local legislature (DPRD) whose members, in his view, were corrupt political party members. Ahok blew the whistle on the budget machinations in Jakarta. His relationship with the DPRD became tense, unsurprisingly. But the polls found that Ahok's popularity rose as a result of this clash.
Ahok's plan to take the independent route has been generally welcomed. His supporters eventually established 'Friends of Ahok', an organization of volunteers whose goal is to gather the signatures needed for Ahok to run as an independent. In only three months, they have obtained almost one million copies of ID cards-more than the total required by the General Elections Commission (KPU), and more than the number of votes garnered by all the parties, except the PDI-P, in the last Jakarta legislative election. The current local and regional election law, which allows independent candidates to run in elections, is an amendment of the previous regulation, which gave the parties a monopoly on nominating their candidates.
The principle behind this movement is that any citizen who is not a member of any political party should have the same constitutional rights as party members, because increasingly, political parties no longer seem to represent the voice of the people. Thanks to a number of corruption and nepotism cases, the parties are seen more as representatives of the oligarchs than of the public.
PDI-P and Golkar have signaled their readiness to nominate Ahok, and having been in office for the past two years, he is well aware for the need to have political protection when he faces the legislature on sensitive issues.
One of them is the Jakarta Bay reclamation project. In exchange for agreeing to the project, Ahok received contributions-in the form of several projects in the capital city-although the regulation covering such funding were not approved by the DPRD. And although there is no evidence that any money went into the governor's pockets, this down-payment type of practice contradicts the principles of good governance-something that Ahok should be upholding.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has detained Jakarta legislator Sanusi and developer Ariesman Widjaja over a bribery case involving the reclamation project. The KPK is investigating the possibility that the governor may have also been involved.
Ahok should not waver. It is true that the independent route will only give him a ticket to the election, not the political 'protection' against attacks from the legislature over the reclamation and other issues. It would be most unfortunate if Ahok relied totally on political parties to protect him from the KPK.
Ahok has nothing to fear from the legislators. He has clashed with the DPRD on many occasions before and emerged victorious. If he is certain he has done nothing wrong, there is no need for Ahok to be concerned about the KPK. (*)
Read the full story in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine
